[Peace-discuss] The Air War in Iraq

[David Green]

A submission to the Chicago Tribune:

Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 03:35:36 EST

From: Annette Jacobson 

To: ctc-COMMENT at tribune.com 

Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 10:58 PM

Subject: Air War in Iraq

Op-Ed Page, The Chicago Tribune                       
                       
                         December 29, 2005


Dear Editor,

A small news headline, "US Air Strikes Take Toll on
Civilians" 
[Washington 
Post, 12/25/05] reveals that there is an ongoing air
war in Iraq, and 
it is 
largely being waged without publicity or major media
reporting, except 
in 
scattered and short military announcements, and rarely
taking civilian 
casualties into 
account. Air strikes by the US military in Iraq have
surged this fall, 
jumping to nearly five times the average monthly rate
earlier in the 
year, according 
to US military figures. The Post report is a major
exception in news 
reporting about it:

"US Marine air strikes targeting insurgents sheltering
in Iraqi 
residential 
neighborhoods are killing civilians as well as
guerrillas...according 
to Iraqi 
townspeople and officials and the US military. Just
how many civilians 
have 
been killed is strongly disputed by the Marines, and
some critics say 
too little 
investigated. But townspeople, tribal leaders, medical
workers and 
witnesses 
at the sites of clashes, at hospitals and graveyards
indicated that 
scores of 
noncombatants were killed last month in fighting,
including air 
strikes, in 
the opening stages of a 17-day US-Iraqi offensive in
Anbar 
province...Medical 
workers had recorded 97 civilians killed. At least 38
insurgents were 
also 
killed in the offensive's early days."

Though it receives little coverage in the US media,
the Air Force, 
Marines, 
and Navy have flown thousands of missions in support
of ground 
offensives in 
Iraq. Independent Canadian journalist Dahr Jamail in a
published 
article in 
mid-December quoted figures provided by Central
Command Air Force's 
public affairs 
office showing that the number of air missions
including air support 
grew 
from 1,111 - in September 2005 alone - to 1,492 in
November. News 
reports focus 
on mainly ground action, but the whole panoply of US
and Coalition 
aircraft 
carry out attacks daily, including front line Air
Force and Navy 
fighters, as 
well as Marine attack planes and unmanned Predator
aircraft armed with 
Hellfire 
missiles.

The Air Force claims that 70 percent of all munitions
they use are 
"precision-guided" and that "every possible precaution
is taken to 
protect innocent 
Iraqi civilians, facilities and infrastructure." This
benign 
pronouncement by the 
people-friendly Pentagon fails to describe a
distinction between how 
much 
protection precision-guided bombs provide and the
actual devastation on 
the ground 
they cause.

Bombs used range in explosive power from 250 to 2000
pounds; they were 
used 
extensively during the massive operation recently in
Fallujah, and now 
in towns 
and cities in western Anbar province and the Euphrates
river valley. 
Also 
used in Fallujah was the 500 pound fire bomb
(equivalent of Napalm), 
also the 
infamous White Phosphorous (recently disclosed on
Italian television 
and 
subsequently admitted to by the US)

- 2 -

As reported by Dahr Jamail, the 2000 pound variety has
the capacity to 
blast 
a crater in a concrete street 70 feet in diameter and
30 feet deep, has 
a 
blast radius of 110 feet within which a human being
will die, while 
fragmentation 
from the bomb casing can achieve velocities up to 9000
feet a second 
and reach 
areas over 3000 feet away from the detonation site.


Since the bombing runs are regularly conducted in
densely-inhabited 
areas of 
cities and towns 

where much of the resistance is located, it is obvious
that scores of 
people 
within the range of detonation will be killed or
severely injured. Thus 
the 
cynical public relations caveat of "precision-guided"
is empty of 
meaning with 
respect to civilian casualties 

Soon it will be three years since the start of the
American-led 
invasion of 
Iraq. The estimates of Iraqi civilians killed range
from 30,000 to 
118,000, the 
numbers of injured in hospital wards and neighborhoods
are two to three 
times 
those numbers.

The recent talk in Washington is about withdrawing
some troops from 
Iraq, and 
because there is very little reporting about the air
war, the public is 
led 
to assume that a reduction of American troop levels
will mean a drop in 
the 
carnage carried out by the US. 

But in the in-depth report by Seymour Hersh in the New
Yorker he 
states: "A 
key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in
the president's 
public 
statements, is that the departing American troops will
be replaced by 
[increased] 
American air power." One is left to wonder how much
more devastation 
can be 
sustained by the Iraqi people more than that already
caused by the 
current 
levels of American air power dropped specifically on
densely populated 
urban areas 
of that country?

And, as Hersh states, "As yet, neither Congress nor
the public has 
engaged in 
a significant discussion or debate about the air war."
And one reason 
for 
that (among others) is that the major US news media
are not widely 
reporting on 
the extent of the urban bombardment, nor the resulting
slaughter and 
horrendous 
consequences for the people who suffer under it.

Annette Jacobson
Highland Park, Il.



		
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