US slaughter in Falluja

As The Guardian went to press the US had begun a 
massive bombing offensive on the Iraqi city of Falluja. Although 
thousands had managed to flee the city in the lead up to the 
attack, most residents, at least 100,000 remain. Many will be 
slaughtered by the US forces in an attack that adds to the crimes 
against humanity perpetrated by the Bush administration and its 
supporters.

Around 15,000 US troops, backed by all the murderous power 
available to them, are moving into the city for what the US 
commander in Iraq, General George Casey, called a "major 
confrontation". The remains of the city's main hospital and 
railway station are reported to have been taken by US forces.

All medical supplies, water and electricity have been cut off. 
This will multiply the disaster for the residents who have been 
under attack from US bombing for a number of weeks. The Nazzal 
Emergency Hospital, in the centre of the city, was completely 
destroyed last Saturday.

This attack is a reaction by the occupying forces who are 
increasingly desperate in their failure to gain complete control 
over the country.

The extent of their desperation is reflected in the fact that 
they are willing to wipe out thousands of innocent civilians 
using massive fire power and ground forces to have a 
"confrontation" with, in Casey's words, just "3000 insurgents 
inside the city".

Clearly, the occupation of Iraq has now become an exercise to 
totally cower the population through the use of force.

Tony Kevin is a former Australian diplomat currently at the 
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian 
National University. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald 
(November 9) he warned of the escalating situation if, as he 
thought, Falluja insurgents are likely to dig in.

"What I believe is then likely to be done to Falluja will be a 
war crime and a crime against humanity, morally indefensible by 
any civilized standard or for that matter, by the Statute of the 
International Criminal Court."

He points out that as a military ally with troops in Iraq, 
Australia is also morally implicated and notes, "While Australian 
former SAS commanders,the Governor-General Major General Michael 
Jeffery, and the Australian Christian Lobby's chairman, Brigadier 
Jim Wallace, moralise about abortions and gay marriage, 
Australia's military ally is about to destroy a living city and 
its families."