300,000 Vanish, Goats Patrol Falluja
Andrew Wimmer • Monday, November 15, 2004 • War and Peace, Iraq
“Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble. There aren’t going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by US forces,” he said.
Donald Rumsfeld
“Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out,” he said. “There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days. U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house,” he said.
Hussein said he panicked, seizing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River. “I wasn’t really thinking,” he said. “Suddenly, I just had to get out. I didn’t think there was any other choice.”
“I decided to swim … but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river.” He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he “helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands.”
“I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards.”
AP Photographer, Bilal Hussein, native of Falluja
email thisFalluja Liberated
Andrew Wimmer • Sunday, November 14, 2004 • War and Peace, Iraq
Falluja, Sunday: “The city has been seized,” General John Abizaid, of US central command, said. “We have liberated the city of Falluja.”
Lieutenant General John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said: “The perception of Falluja being a safe haven for terrorists, that perception and the reality of it will be completely wiped off before the conclusion of this operation.”
US military chiefs said that they saw no need for the Iraqi Red Crescent to deliver aid inside Falluja because they did not think any Iraqi civilians were trapped there.
“There is no need to bring [Red Crescent] supplies in because we have supplies of our own for the people,” said Colonel Mike Shupp of the Marines.
