30
Sep
2003
Editor's note: This is the fourth and last story in a series of articles being filed from Iraq by River Cities' Reader political columnist and Chicago-based journalist Rich Miller. The previous three stories can be found rcreader.com/display_article.php3?index=1&artid=1488>here, here, and here.
Two-year-old Dunja Turki was playing quietly in her family's backyard on a pleasant Friday afternoon when she was killed by American soldiers.
Witnesses say the Americans were patrolling the road near Dunja's house when Iraqi rebels detonated what is known here as an Improvised Explosive Device, or IED. Immediately after the explosion, neighbors say, the American infantrymen began firing wildly at homes along the road, killing Dunja instantly and injuring several of her cousins and siblings. The Americans simply drove off after the shooting, not stopping to offer any first aid to the wounded children.
The same burst of gunfire that killed baby Dunja also blew several holes through a metal door right behind her. One of those bullets wounded nine-year-old Sarab as she held her seven-month-old brother Abdul in her arms.
Little Abdul was extremely lucky. He wasn't injured, but a plastic milk glass was shot out of his hands.
Besahd Kurgi, Abdul's 17-year-old cousin, was standing next to him and Sarab when the shooting began. Besahd reflexively closed the door when the shooting started, thinking the door's metal construction would keep them safe. An American bullet pierced the door and caught her in the left calf.
17-year-old Manaal Turki was taking an afternoon nap when the Americans opened fire. A bullet penetrated a brick wall and caught her in the back. Over a week after the shooting, Manaal was still in the hospital.
The incident was completely ignored by the international media, partly because it happened a little over 12 hours after American soldiers accidentally killed 11 Iraqi policemen who had chased a carload of gunmen toward their late-night roadblock.
But the death of baby Dunja and the injuries of her young relatives dramatically show how poorly run the American occupation of Iraq can be.
The infantry is trained to fire at anything that is even perceived to be a threat. So, when an IED is detonated, or a gun is fired near their position, the infantry respond with overwhelming firepower.
This tactic is generally accepted during full-scale war conditions, when threats are literally everywhere and civilian casualties are viewed as unfortunate but mostly unavoidable.
The full-scale war in Iraq ended almost five months ago, and within the past couple of months the operation has resembled more of a police action than a constantly hot battleground. But the infantry, despite repeated pledges from the leaders of the American forces to run a kinder, gentler operation, has barely toned down its tactics.
For instance, two months ago, IEDs were mostly primitive devices detonated from a few meters away with old-fashioned fuses. Firing at the surrounding area of the explosion carried with it a relatively high probability of killing the bad guys.
Now, though, Americans say the rebels have become much more sophisticated. IEDs are mostly detonated with wireless controls that can be 200 meters away from the target. So the infantry has taken to shooting up whole neighborhoods in response, partly in the hope of neutralizing a needle in a haystack.
Some of the IED attacks, but not most, have been followed up with automatic-weapons fire at American positions. So the seemingly wild shooting by the Americans can also partly be explained as proactive suppressive fire.
The problem with this tactic, obviously, is that innocent people are being killed and injured. Nobody really knows how many Iraqis are being shot because the Americans only rarely report Iraqi casualties.
And one of the best ways for reporters to track civilian injuries and deaths was recently nixed by the American occupation forces. Up until recently, reporters could walk into an Iraqi hospital, ask a few questions, and be led to civilians who had been injured by the Americans.
But the Coalition Provisional Authority now requires reporters to obtain written permission before entering an Iraqi civilian hospital. The authorization takes at least a week, and, as a result, several journalists have reportedly stopped using hospitals as information resources.
There are practical reasons, of course, for barring reporters from just waltzing into hospitals. The hospitals here are grossly overburdened to begin with, so the journalists would just be adding to their already taxed-to-the-limit workloads.
A couple of days before the Americans killed baby Dunja and those eleven Iraqi policemen in Fallujah, they also shot up a wedding party. A teenaged boy fired off a few rounds from his family's AK-47 rifle and some nearby American soldiers mistook the shooting for hostile fire and shot him in the chest.
My driver/interpreter happens to know the director of the Fallujah hospital, so we were able to get around the ban on unapproved visits. We went looking for the boy last week, but we were told he had died.
His little brother, however, was in a bed in a communal room near one of the wounded policemen. Five-year-old Khatab Omal was standing in the street when his brother fired off the Kaleshnikov rifle. His left leg was broken in two by an American bullet. He has two pins in his left thigh and is in constant pain.
Down the hall from little Khatab was Manaal Turki, the 17-year-old sister of baby Dunja.
Manaal's cousin, Shakel, was visiting her in the hospital when we arrived. He agreed to take us to his family's compound a few kilometers outside town. The extended family lives together, which is not uncommon in Iraq, and is particularly common here in Fallujah. Altogether, 37 people - Dunja's brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents - live in four buildings on a couple acres of land.
Abbas Turki, Dunja's father, took us on a tour of the family buildings. He and the rest of the Turki clansmen were not at home when the shooting started, he said.
Abbas and I counted more than 20 bullet holes in the stone and brick structures. Some of the bullets had simply made large indentations in the buildings. Others had gone right through, like the one that put Manaal in the hospital.
Abbas, a construction-equipment operator, said he hasn't been able to work since his young daughter was killed. "I cannot do anything any more," he said.
Fallujah is infamous throughout Iraq for its revenge killings and blood feuds, so I asked Abbas if he would now take revenge on the Americans.
His father, Isawi, the patriarch of the Turki clan, jumped into the conversation at that point. "There will be no revenge," he said with a gentle tone, adding that he bore no anger against the Americans.
Abbas said he was angry, very angry, at the Americans, but also pledged not to take revenge.
The Americans might have the brutal legacy of Saddam Hussein to thank for the Turki clan's understanding. Iraqis have endured regular electricity blackouts, rampant crime, skyrocketing unemployment, currency inflation, a lack of adequate medicines, and an uncommunicative occupation leadership mostly because so many people are still relieved that their longtime dictator is finally gone.
But how many more babies can we shoot, accidentally or not, before the Iraqis finally turn on us?
Two-year-old Dunja Turki was playing quietly in her family's backyard on a pleasant Friday afternoon when she was killed by American soldiers.
Witnesses say the Americans were patrolling the road near Dunja's house when Iraqi rebels detonated what is known here as an Improvised Explosive Device, or IED. Immediately after the explosion, neighbors say, the American infantrymen began firing wildly at homes along the road, killing Dunja instantly and injuring several of her cousins and siblings. The Americans simply drove off after the shooting, not stopping to offer any first aid to the wounded children.
The same burst of gunfire that killed baby Dunja also blew several holes through a metal door right behind her. One of those bullets wounded nine-year-old Sarab as she held her seven-month-old brother Abdul in her arms.
Little Abdul was extremely lucky. He wasn't injured, but a plastic milk glass was shot out of his hands.
Besahd Kurgi, Abdul's 17-year-old cousin, was standing next to him and Sarab when the shooting began. Besahd reflexively closed the door when the shooting started, thinking the door's metal construction would keep them safe. An American bullet pierced the door and caught her in the left calf.
17-year-old Manaal Turki was taking an afternoon nap when the Americans opened fire. A bullet penetrated a brick wall and caught her in the back. Over a week after the shooting, Manaal was still in the hospital.
The incident was completely ignored by the international media, partly because it happened a little over 12 hours after American soldiers accidentally killed 11 Iraqi policemen who had chased a carload of gunmen toward their late-night roadblock.
But the death of baby Dunja and the injuries of her young relatives dramatically show how poorly run the American occupation of Iraq can be.
The infantry is trained to fire at anything that is even perceived to be a threat. So, when an IED is detonated, or a gun is fired near their position, the infantry respond with overwhelming firepower.
This tactic is generally accepted during full-scale war conditions, when threats are literally everywhere and civilian casualties are viewed as unfortunate but mostly unavoidable.
The full-scale war in Iraq ended almost five months ago, and within the past couple of months the operation has resembled more of a police action than a constantly hot battleground. But the infantry, despite repeated pledges from the leaders of the American forces to run a kinder, gentler operation, has barely toned down its tactics.
For instance, two months ago, IEDs were mostly primitive devices detonated from a few meters away with old-fashioned fuses. Firing at the surrounding area of the explosion carried with it a relatively high probability of killing the bad guys.
Now, though, Americans say the rebels have become much more sophisticated. IEDs are mostly detonated with wireless controls that can be 200 meters away from the target. So the infantry has taken to shooting up whole neighborhoods in response, partly in the hope of neutralizing a needle in a haystack.
Some of the IED attacks, but not most, have been followed up with automatic-weapons fire at American positions. So the seemingly wild shooting by the Americans can also partly be explained as proactive suppressive fire.
The problem with this tactic, obviously, is that innocent people are being killed and injured. Nobody really knows how many Iraqis are being shot because the Americans only rarely report Iraqi casualties.
And one of the best ways for reporters to track civilian injuries and deaths was recently nixed by the American occupation forces. Up until recently, reporters could walk into an Iraqi hospital, ask a few questions, and be led to civilians who had been injured by the Americans.
But the Coalition Provisional Authority now requires reporters to obtain written permission before entering an Iraqi civilian hospital. The authorization takes at least a week, and, as a result, several journalists have reportedly stopped using hospitals as information resources.
There are practical reasons, of course, for barring reporters from just waltzing into hospitals. The hospitals here are grossly overburdened to begin with, so the journalists would just be adding to their already taxed-to-the-limit workloads.
A couple of days before the Americans killed baby Dunja and those eleven Iraqi policemen in Fallujah, they also shot up a wedding party. A teenaged boy fired off a few rounds from his family's AK-47 rifle and some nearby American soldiers mistook the shooting for hostile fire and shot him in the chest.
My driver/interpreter happens to know the director of the Fallujah hospital, so we were able to get around the ban on unapproved visits. We went looking for the boy last week, but we were told he had died.
His little brother, however, was in a bed in a communal room near one of the wounded policemen. Five-year-old Khatab Omal was standing in the street when his brother fired off the Kaleshnikov rifle. His left leg was broken in two by an American bullet. He has two pins in his left thigh and is in constant pain.
Down the hall from little Khatab was Manaal Turki, the 17-year-old sister of baby Dunja.
Manaal's cousin, Shakel, was visiting her in the hospital when we arrived. He agreed to take us to his family's compound a few kilometers outside town. The extended family lives together, which is not uncommon in Iraq, and is particularly common here in Fallujah. Altogether, 37 people - Dunja's brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents - live in four buildings on a couple acres of land.
Abbas Turki, Dunja's father, took us on a tour of the family buildings. He and the rest of the Turki clansmen were not at home when the shooting started, he said.
Abbas and I counted more than 20 bullet holes in the stone and brick structures. Some of the bullets had simply made large indentations in the buildings. Others had gone right through, like the one that put Manaal in the hospital.
Abbas, a construction-equipment operator, said he hasn't been able to work since his young daughter was killed. "I cannot do anything any more," he said.
Fallujah is infamous throughout Iraq for its revenge killings and blood feuds, so I asked Abbas if he would now take revenge on the Americans.
His father, Isawi, the patriarch of the Turki clan, jumped into the conversation at that point. "There will be no revenge," he said with a gentle tone, adding that he bore no anger against the Americans.
Abbas said he was angry, very angry, at the Americans, but also pledged not to take revenge.
The Americans might have the brutal legacy of Saddam Hussein to thank for the Turki clan's understanding. Iraqis have endured regular electricity blackouts, rampant crime, skyrocketing unemployment, currency inflation, a lack of adequate medicines, and an uncommunicative occupation leadership mostly because so many people are still relieved that their longtime dictator is finally gone.
But how many more babies can we shoot, accidentally or not, before the Iraqis finally turn on us?
