[Peace-discuss] farmworkers - Iraqi bridge of death

[Ricky Baldwin]

[This message is from the Coalition of Immokalee
Workers listserv, the folks who pick tomatoes for Taco
Bell (who have called for a national boycott).  They
have a very compelling story of their own, from
beatings by farmers to federal slavery convictions. 
This is the first posting I have ever seen on their
listserv that does not deal directly with their
struggle, and I found it moving for that fact before I
even reading this disturbing piece. - RB]

Friends -  We were going to send a listserve message
containing the
latest Op/Ed piece on the Taco Bell boycott and
slavery in the fields, which 
appeared this past Sunday in the Palm Beach Post.  We
changed our
minds...

Please read the following story (it is long, but very
much worth it),
taken from the excellent email news service called
"Truth Out".  It is a story
on the war on Iraq.  If you don't read anything else
about the war, please read
this.  Sorry for the change of message, we will send
the opinion piece around 
soon,but this seemed too important to not use any
platform at our disposal to 
get out.  Thank you - CIW
_____________________________________________
US Marines Turn Fire on Civilians at the Bridge of
Death
Mark Franchetti, Nasiriya
The Times UK

Sunday 30 March 2003

THE light was a strange yellowy grey and the wind was
coming up, the
beginnings of a sandstorm. The silence felt almost
eerie after a night of 
shooting so intense it hurt the eardrums and shattered
the nerves. My
footsteps felt heavy on the hot, dusty asphalt as I
walked slowly
towards the bridge at Nasiriya. A horrific scene lay
ahead.

Some 15 vehicles, including a minivan and a couple of
trucks, blocked
the road. They were riddled with bullet holes. Some
had caught fire and
turned into piles of black twisted metal. Others were
still burning.

Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying
in the road or in
nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this
southern town
overnight, probably for fear of being killed by US
helicopter attacks
and heavy artillery.

Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is
crucial to the
coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of
shell-shocked
young  American marines with orders to shoot anything
that moved.

One man's body was still in flames. It gave out a
hissing sound.
Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of
banknotes were turning to
ashes.  His savings, perhaps.

Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and
dressed in a
pretty orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next
to the body of a man
who may have been her father. Half his head was
missing.

Nearby, in a battered old Volga, peppered with
ammunition holes, an
Iraqi woman - perhaps the girl's mother - was dead,
slumped in the back
seat. A US Abrams tank nicknamed Ghetto Fabulous drove
past the bodies.

This was not the only family who had taken what they
thought was a
last chance for safety. A father, baby girl and boy
lay in a shallow
grave. On the bridge itself a dead Iraqi civilian lay
next to the carcass of a
donkey.

As I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third
child, Isabella,
was born while he was on board ship en route to the
Gulf, appeared
beside me.

"Did you see all that?" he asked, his eyes filled with
tears. "Did you
see that little baby girl? I carried her body and
buried it as best I
could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see
children being
killed like this, but we had no choice."

Martin's distress was in contrast to the bitter
satisfaction of some of his fellow 
marines as they surveyed the scene. "The Iraqis are
sick people and we are 
the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am
starting to hate this 
country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No,
I won't get hold of one. I'll just 
kill him."

Only a few days earlier these had still been the
bright-eyed small-town boys 
with whom I crossed the border at the start of the
operation. They had rolled 
towards Nasiriya, a strategic city beside the
Euphrates, on a mission to secure 
a safe supply route for troops on the way to Baghdad.

They had expected a welcome, or at least a swift
surrender. Instead
they mhad found themselves lured into a bloody battle,
culminating in the
worst coalition losses of the war - 16 dead, 12
wounded and two missing
marines as well as five dead and 12 missing servicemen
from an army 
convoy - and the humiliation of having prisoners
paraded on Iraqi television.

There are three key bridges at Nasiriya. The feat of
Martin, Dupre and
their fellow marines in securing them under heavy fire
was compared by
armchair strategists last week to the seizure of the
Remagen bridge
over the Rhine, which significantly advanced victory
over Germany in the
second world war.

But it was also the turning point when the jovial band
of brothers from America 
lost all their assumptions about the war and became
jittery aggressors who 
talked of wanting to "nuke" the place.

None of this was foreseen at Camp Shoup, one of the
marines' tent
encampments in northern Kuwait, where officers from
the 1st and 2nd
battalions of Task Force Tarawa, the 7,000-strong US
Marines brigade,
spent long evenings poring over maps and satellite
imagery before the
invasion.

The plan seemed straightforward. The marines would
speed unhindered
over the 130 miles of desert up from the Kuwaiti
border and approach
Nasiriya from the southeast to secure a bridge over
the Euphrates. They 
would then drive north through the outskirts of
Nasiriya to a second bridge, 
over the Inahr al-Furbati canal. Finally, they would
turn west and secure
the third bridge, also over the canal. The marines
would not enter the
city proper, let alone attempt to take it.

The coalition could then start moving thousands of
troops and logistical
support units up highway 7, leading to Baghdad, 225
miles to the north.

There was only one concern: "ambush alley", the road
connecting the
first two bridges. But intelligence suggested there
would be little or no
fighting as this eastern side of the city was mostly
"pro-American".

I was with Alpha company. We reached the outskirts of
Nasiriya at
about breakfast time last Sunday. Some marines were
disappointed to be
carrying out a mission that seemed a sideshow to the
main effort. But in an
ominous sign of things to come, our battalion stopped
in its tracks, three miles 
outside the city.

Bad news filtered back. Earlier that morning a US Army
convoy had been
greeted by a group of Iraqis dressed in civilian
clothes, apparently
wanting to surrender. When the American soldiers
stopped, the Iraqis
pulled out AK-47s and sprayed the US trucks with
gunfire.

Five wounded soldiers were rescued by our convoy,
including one who
had been shot four times. The attackers were believed
to be members of the
Fedayeen Saddam, a group of 15,000 fighters under the
command of 
Saddam's psychopathic son Uday.

Blown-up tyres, a pool of blood, spent ammunition and
shards of glass
from the bulletridden windscreen marked the spot where
the ambush had
taken place. Swiftly, our AAVs (23-ton amphibious
assault vehicles) took
up defensive positions. About 100 marines jumped out
of their vehicles
and took cover in ditches, pointing their sights at a
mud-caked house.
Was it harbouring gunmen? Small groups of marines
approached,
cautiously, to search for the enemy. A dozen terrified
civilians, mainly women 
and children, emerged with their hands raised.

"It's just a bunch of Hajis," said one gunner from his
turret, using their 
nickname for Arabs. "Friggin' women and children,
that's all."

Cobras and Huey attack helicopters began firing
missiles at targets on
the edge of the city. Plumes of smoke rose as heavy
artillery shook the
ground under our feet.

Heavy machinegun fire echoed across the huge rubbish
dump that marks
the entrance to Nasiriya. Suddenly there was return
fire from three large
oil tanks at a refinery. The Cobras were called back,
and within seconds
they roared above our heads, firing off missiles in
clouds of purple tracer
fire.

There were several loud explosions. Flames burst high
into the sky
from one of the oil tanks. The marines believed that
what opposition there
was had now been crushed. "We are going in, we are
going in," shouted one
of the officers.

More than 20 AAVs, several tanks and about 10 Hummers
equipped with
roof-mounted, anti-tank missile launchers prepared to
move in. Crammed
inside them were some 400 marines. Tension rose as
they loaded their
guns and stuck their heads over the side of the AAVs
through the open roof,
their M-16 pointed in all directions.

As we set off towards the eastern city gate there was
no sense of the
mayhem awaiting us down the road. A few locals dressed
in rags watched
the awesome spectacle of America's war machine on the
move. Nobody 
waved.

Slowly we approached the first bridge. Fires were
raging on either
side of the road; Cobras had destroyed an Iraqi
military truck and a T55
tank positioned inside a dugout. Powerful explosions
came from inside the
bowels of the tank as its ammunition and heavy shells
were set off by the
fire. With each explosion a thick and perfect ring of
black smoke ring
puffed out of the turret.

An Iraqi defence post lay abandoned. Cobras flew over
an oasis of palm
trees and deserted brick and mud-caked houses. We
charged onto the
bridge, and as we crossed the Euphrates, a large mural
of Saddam came
into view. Some marines reached for their disposable
cameras.

Suddenly, as we approached ambush alley on the far
side of the bridge,
the crackle of AK-47s broke out. Our AAVs began to
zigzag to avoid
being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).

The road widened out to a square, with a mosque and
the portrait of
Saddam on the left-hand side. The vehicles wheeled
round, took up a
defensive position, back to back, and began taking
fire.

Pinned down, the marines fired back with 40mm
automatic grenade
launchers, a weapon so powerful it can go through
thick brick walls
and kill anyone within a 5-yard range of where the
shell lands.

I was in AAV number A304, affectionately nicknamed the
Desert Caddy.
It shook as Keith Bernize, the gunner, fired off round
after deafening
round at sandbag positions shielding suspected
Fedayeen fighters. His steel
ammunition box clanged with the sound of smoking empty
shells and
cartridges.

Bernize, who always carries a scan picture of his
unborn baby daughter
with him, shot at the targets from behind a turret,
peering through
narrow slits of reinforced glass. He shouted at his
men to feed him
more ammunition. Four marines, standing at the AAV's
four corners,
precariously perched on ammunition boxes, fired off
their M-16s.

Their faces covered in sweat, officers shouted
commands into field
radios, giving co-ordinates of enemy positions. Some
200 marines,
full exposed to enemy fire and slowed down by their
heavy weapons, bulky
ammunition packs and NBC suits, ran across the road,
taking shelter
behind a long brick wall and mounds of earth. A team
of snipers
appeared, yards from our vehicle.

The exchange of fire was relentless. We were pinned
down for more than
three hours as Iraqis hiding inside houses and a
hospital and behind
street corners fired a barrage of ammunition.

Despite the marines' overwhelming firepower, hitting
the Iraqis was
not easy. The gunmen were not wearing uniforms and had
planned their
ambush well - stockpiling weapons in dozens of houses,
between which they
moved freely pretending to be civilians.

"It's a bad situation," said First Sergeant James
Thompson, who was
running around with a 9mm pistol in his hand. "We
don't know who is
shooting at us. They are even using women as scouts.
The women come
out waving at us, or with their hands raised. We
freeze, but the next
minute we can see how she is looking at our positions
and giving them away 
to the fighters hiding behind a street corner. It's
very difficult to
distinguish between the fighters and civilians."

Across the square, genuine civilians were running for
their lives.  Many,
including some children, were gunned down in the
crossfire. In a
surreal scene, a father and mother stood out on a
balcony with their children
in their arms to give them a better view of the battle
raging below. A
few minutes later several US mortar shells landed in
front of their
house. In all probability, the family is dead.

The fighting intensified. An Iraqi fighter emerged
from behind a wall of
sandbags 500 yards away from our vehicle. Several
times he managed to
fire off an RPG at our positions. Bernize and other
gunners fired
dozens of rounds at his dugout, punching large holes
into a house and lifting
thick clouds of dust.

Captain Mike Brooks, commander of Alpha company,
pinned down in front
of the mosque, called in tank support. Armed with only
a 9mm pistol, he
jumped out of the back of his AAV with a young marine
carrying a field
radio on his back.

Brooks, 34, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been
in command of
20 men for just over a year. He joined the marines
when he was 19
because he felt that he was wasting his life. He
needed direction, was a bit of 
a rebel and was impressed by the sense of pride in the
corps.

He is a soft-spoken man, fair but very firm. Brave
too: I watched him
sprint in front of enemy positions to brief some of
his junior officers
behind a wall. Behind us, two 68-ton Abrams tanks
rolled up, crushing
the barrier separating the lanes on the highway.

The earth shook violently as one tank, Desert Knight,
stopped in
front of our row of AAVS and fired several 120mm
shells into buildings.

A few hundred yards down ambush alley there was
carnage. An AAV from
Charlie company was racing back towards the bridge to
evacuate some
wounded marines when it was hit by two RPGs. The heavy
vehicle shook
but withstood the explosions.

Then the Iraqis fired again. This time the rocket
plunged into the
vehicle through the open rooftop. The explosion was
deadly, made 10
times more powerful by the ammunition stored in the
back.

The wreckage smouldered in the middle of the road. I
jumped out from
the rear hatch of our vehicle, briefly taking cover
behind a wall. When I
reached the stricken AAV, the scene was mayhem.

The heavy, thick rear ramp had been blown open. There
were pools of
blood and bits of flesh everywhere. A severed leg,
still wearing a desert
boot, lay on what was left of the ramp among playing
cards, a magazine,
cans of Coke and a small bloodstained teddy bear.

"They are f****** dead, they are dead. Oh my God. Get
in there. Get in
there now and pull them out," shouted a gunner in a
state verging on
hysterical.

There was panic and confusion as a group of young
marines, shouting
and cursing orders at one another, pulled out a maimed
body.

Two men struggled to lift the body on a stretcher and
into the back
of a Hummer, but it would not fit inside, so the
stretcher remained almost
upright, the dead man's leg, partly blown away,
dangling in the air.

"We shouldn't be here," said Lieutenant Campbell Kane,
25, who was
born in Northern Ireland. "We can't hold this. They
are trying to suck us
into the city and we haven't got enough ass up here to
sustain this. We
need more tanks, more helicopters."

Closer to the destroyed AAV, another young marine was
transfixed with
fear and kept repeating: "Oh my God, I can't believe
this. Did you see
his leg? It was blown off. It was blown off."

Two CH-46 helicopters, nicknamed Frogs, landed a few
hundred yards
away in the middle of a firefight to take away the
dead and wounded.

If at first the marines felt constrained by orders to
protect civilians,
by now the battle had become so intense that there was
little time for
niceties. Cobra helicopters were ordered to fire at a
row of houses
closest to our positions. There were massive
explosions but the return
fire barely died down.

Behind us, as many as four AAVs that had driven down
along the banks
of the Euphrates were stuck in deep mud and coming
under fire.

About 1pm, after three hours of intense fighting, the
order was given
to regroup and try to head out of the city in convoy.
Several marines who
had lost their vehicles piled into the back of ours.

We raced along ambush alley at full speed, close to a
line of houses.
"My driver got hit," said one of the marines who
joined us, his face and
uniform caked in mud. "I went to try to help him when
he got hit by
another RPG or a mortar. I don't even know how many
friends I have
lost. I don't care if they nuke that bloody city now.