Now that Fallujah is smashed into heaps of smoking corpse-strewn rubble, the US Military is gearing up for what they call the “next battle” – the battle for “hearts and minds.” The Civilians that famously didn’t exist yesterday are now expected to come to a food and medical distribution center run by their liberators:
But Monday the mosque became a food and medical distribution center – the first tentative step by US and Iraqi forces to move this broken ghost town from war to peace.
Some 88 families sent men on foot to collect food and water, handed out by Iraqi National Guard units after US civil affairs teams broadcast news of the distribution.
The danger of the rebels remains: One man was carried dead to the mosque, after being shot while on his way by what his friends described as a foreign insurgent sniper. Elsewhere in Fallujah, a US marine was also killed by a sniper.
“People were so happy [when they came], because they need water and food for so many days,” says Dr. Adnan Naji, a medical doctor and captain in the Iraqi armed forces, who set up a clinic inside the mosque Monday that treated nearly 20 cases.
“This is a very important day for us, and for Iraqi and American soldiers, because we let the people go out,” says Dr. Naji.
They let the people go out.
Besides the first food and water distributions, which were protected by US forces as Iraqi units gave the handouts, the Imam of the Hadra mosque organized a mix of Iraqi soldiers and civilian men to remove the scores of dead from the streets.
Oh, that’s nice.
While this happy scene is playing out in downtown Fallujah, Dahr Jamail reports:
The horrendous humanitarian disaster of Fallujah drags on as the US military continues to refuse the entry of an Iraqi Red Crescent (IRC) convoy of relief supplies. The Red Crescent has appealed to the UN to intervene, but no such luck, nor does the military relent.
IP’s, who are under U.S. control, have looted Fallujah General Hospital.
The military stopped the Red Crescent at the gates of the city and are not allowing them in. They allowed some bodies to be buried, but others are being eaten by dogs and cats in the streets, as reported by refugees just out of the city, as well as residents still trapped there.
The military said it saw no need for the IRC to deliver aid to people inside Fallujah because it did not think any civilians were still inside the city.
Contradicting this claim, along with virtually every aid work, refugee, and resident of Fallujah was US Marine Col. Mike Shupp who said, “There is no need to bring [Red Crescent] supplies in because we have supplies of our own for the people.”
IRC spokeswoman Firdu al-Ubadi added, “We know of at least 157 families inside Fallujah who need our help.”
The hospital in Fallujah stands empty not only because the bridge over the Euphrates was blocked by the US Military until today, but also because every car in Fallujah has been destroyed by the invading Marines for fear of car bombs. Now the trapped civilians of Fallujah are forced to go to their liberators for food, water and medicine which makes one wonder just how much humiliation the military is planning to dish out to win those hearts and minds.