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Article 17707 of alt.conspiracy:
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From: jad@Turing.ORG (John DiNardo)
Subject: Part I, Within America's Soul, Hitler is Victorious
Message-ID: <1992Dec1.202151.27711@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 18:03:56 CST
Reply-To: Rich Winkel UMC Math Department
Sender: Activists Mailing List
From: Rich Winkel UMC Math Department
Subject: Inside the Desert Storm Mortuary
To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L
/** mideast.gulf: 92.0 **/
** Topic: Inside the Desert Storm Mortuary **
** Written 8:38 am Mar 26, 1991 by hfrederick in cdp:mideast.gulf **
Subject: Inside the Desert Storm Mortuary
>From jfranklin Tue Mar 26 08:16 PST 1991
FACES OF WAR: INSIDE THE DESERT STORM MORTUARY
BY JONATHAN FRANKLIN
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, DELAWARE - Beneath the corpse, on a
steel tray lays a clean, folded American flag. I slowly raise my eyes
and focus upon the soldier's charred face. Under the bright mortuary
light, the crude sutures in his black lips glisten. I step around the
gurney to inspect his deflated skull.
I'm supposed to be looking at this scene through the eyes of a
moonlighting mortician, not a nosy journalist. But after weeks of
preparation and now a day inside the Desert Storm mortuary, I'm
beginning to think I could really embalm, if I had to. The chief
mortician must be equally convinced as he summons me to his corpse.
"Got your embalming license Franklin? You can start this
afternoon." I ponder the idea only long enough to imagine the National
Enquirer headline: "Undercover Journalist Embalms War Dead." I have
seen enough - possibly too much - and I found a clue suggesting the
Pentagon is masterfully underreporting the number of U.S. combat
casualties.
But for now, I need to escape. "Uh, I'm gonna grab some lunch
and get my [embalming] license from my hotel room," I tell the stocky
chief mortician. "I'll be back in a couple hours."
As I wait for the hearse to escort me free, I take a last
morbid stroll. I look once more at the vicious wounds. The insanity,
the illusions never end. Calm clerks stuff Permaglo-packed bodies
into crisp uniforms. Medals, ribbons and rank insignia are impeccably
aligned across a soldier's lifeless chest. I visit each of the six
naked bodies scattered across the tile floor. Rigor mortis has
captured their last agonizing poses. In a far corner, a young Marine
arches his neck back and draws his mouth wide, his last second must
have been a terrifying scream.
The last expression of the shrouded lump to his right will
always be a mystery. "They're still looking for his head," a mortuary
clerk whispers to me.
Nearly a month before I entered the mortuary, I began
gathering information. For nearly three weeks I buried myself in the
world of morticians, embalmers, and mortuary science professors.
Posing as an actor with an upcoming role as a novice embalmer who
enters a military mortuary, I was openly welcomed into this
notoriously closed society. I read Mortuary Management magazine until
it felt obvious that Permaglo is an embalming fluid and Tk the king of
the casket industry.
I entered the mortuary to quell my hunch that the Pentagon is
underreporting U.S. casualty figures. Military strategists knew, that
if the U.S. television audience could be prevented from seeing - or
knowing - about dead Americans, the war would retain popular support.
The unprecedented reporting restrictions imposed upon the U.S. media
assured that virtually no first hand descriptions or photos of dead
Americans would leave the Gulf. Given the media's feeble attempts at
independent reporting, why wouldn't military officers be tempted to
lie during war's inevitable chaos?
Inside the military's largest mortuary there is no chaos. The
mortuary staff at Dover are professionals, they show no emotion.
Except for one young secretary who is obviously unnerved: "Do
something about that mouth," she shouts to no one in particular.
"That mouth" is a grapefruit-sized hole torn through the face of a
young soldier parked alongside the secretary's desk. A half dozen
mortuary "Inspectors" huddle above the dead soldier. She will be
rebuilt. She will be "cosmetized" and tucked into a fresh uniform. The
illusion of a quiet peace may even rest upon her plaster lips. Every
mortuary worker who saw her naked body recognize this lie. They know
the violence which ripped through her body.
Later that week, newspaper and television reports show only
her smiling face. She is heralded as a patriot who volunteered her
life for the nation's security. Stretched out before me, she looks
like a murdered teenager.
Throughout the 80's Dover was symbolic with the country's
collective mourning: the Challenger crew, the 241 Marines killed in
Beirut and the U.S. soldiers killed during the invasion of Panama.
Here the nation publicly remembered its tragedies.
Apparently someone in the Bush Administration didn't want
television images reminding Americans that Desert Shield would cause
tragedies. Two days after the Gulf War began, public ceremonies at
Dover were abruptly cancelled. Base spokesman Chris Geisel insisted
the cancellation were designed to save families the "hardship" of
travelling to Dover. But as a lawsuit filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union contended, the policy appeared to be another part of
the Pentagon's strategy to suppress television images of dead U.S.
troops.
When I enter the Dover Air Force Base mortuary, during the
height of the brief ground war, fresh coils of barbed wire surround
the shoddily constructed metal warehouse. Searchlights aid armed
guards who patrol the facility. The sight of dead U.S soldiers, one of
the Pentagon's most closely held secrets, is housed in this
nondescript building. The barbed wire and searchlights are designed to
keep prowling journalists from providing an uncensored, first-hand
confirmation of U.S. war casualties.
When bureaucratic hurdles failed to assure the security of
censorship, the Pentagon relied on brute force. Intrepid photographers
who skirted military police lines and shot pictures of U.S. soldiers
killed by an Iraqi scud missile, were ordered to relinquish their film
to U.S. military personnel, according to the Washington Post.
Given this censorship, the media has no safeguards if military
authorities desire to underreport war casualties. Few media
organizations independently confirm the military claims, nor do they
seem aware of the well-documented history of Pentagon deception.
The "Pentagon Papers" released by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971,
offered a rare glimpse at the military's disinformation machine. The
papers document the strategy of exaggerating Viet Cong dead to assure
the U.S. public that the war was being won. Ellsberg offered the
rationale.
Military leaders, Ellsberg said in a telephone interview,
"feel their responsibilities are so burdensome that this is the least
of their problems. They lie so often they are usually terribly
surprised when they are caught. They have the sense that the public
doesn't mind them lying."
When U.S. forces stormed into Panama in December, 1989 the
press was sequestered until nearly all combat was completed.
Reporters based their accounts on carefully crafted, military press
releases. The Pentagon reported fierce resistance and said 314 Noriega
troops died in battl. Two months after the invasion, the Pentagon
quietly admitted to the Los Angeles Times, that only one- sixth of the
"enemy dead" were soldiers. Thus, the U.S. military quietly admitted
they had slaughtered hundreds more Panamanian civilians.
Air Force personnel who participated in the invasion of Panama
told me U.S. combat deaths during "Operation Just Cause" were heavily
underreported. They said combat deaths were classified as "training
accidents" to prevent embarrassing revelations that dozens of U.S.
troops died by "friendly fire."
Two Air Force privates, members of the 24th U.S. Air Force
Supply Division, who scrubbed clean the corpses of servicemen killed
during the invasion, insisted they had washed the blood of "at least
67" dead U.S. soldiers - nearly three times the official Pentagon
figure of 23.
"I personally counted 67 bodies and there could have been many
more. After two days I got off the detail I couldn't take it anymore,"
one of the privates told me last summer.
Remembering this, I fly to Dover. Chris, a young free-lance
mortician, is working in the morgue's "Reconstructive Art" division.
As I approach, he calmly dips a brush into a pool of pink paint and
dabs a glob across the chalk-white nose of a dead soldier. The face is
sutured in 14 places, he tells me. The rough bumps and gouges on the
hardened skin are a valiant attempt to create a resemblance to a human
face.
As he squirts a stream of lighter fluid onto the plastic
palette, Chris treats me like the new rookie on the team. We talk
about weather, sports and any other topic. Anything, I think, just not
the details of embalming.
"How's the pay?" I ask. "It's piece work," Chris whispers.
"I've never made so much money." I excuse myself and head to the
bathroom stall. Crouched behind the closed door, I scribble notes.
Whenever I am left alone, I scratch out another dead soldier's name,
later I compare these names against the official Pentagon list.
Several times during my visit, I am seated at a desk covered
with more documents than I can possibly copy. A white greaseboard
lists the bodies and which airline flight will jet them home. A posted
memo describes how to punch in a code to enter the mortuary phone
system. I see my signature on a form authorizing a FBI background
check.
Before the FBI results return, my mortuary tour begins. A
blue-smocked morgue employee with a badge identifying him as an
"Inspector" outlines the entire mortuary process.
"Here the dead are fingerprinted," The Inspector, tells me,
pointing to a small crowd of bored FBI agents. The fingerprints,
dental x-rays, DNA samples and blood types are all used to positively
identify the dead. That is logical, but why x-ray the entire body? I
ask my tour guide.
"Unexploded ordnances," he says grimly. I imagine an
unsuspecting embalmer blown sky-high after boring into a hand grenade.
We continue into the mortuary waiting room. Six bodies lay
lined up, have they been embalmed or are they frozen? I can't tell,
even the most glaring wounds don't ooze or drip.
The soldiers all lay on their back, naked, except for the
woman. Her vagina and breasts are slightly covered. Their eyes are
shut, their wounds are not. Approximately half the dead I see are
young African-American men.
I gaze at one soldier's nearly intact sculpted body: Looks
like a wight lifter, I think. Those robust, naked thighs could belong
holes splotch the skin from his armpit to his hip. I can scarcely
look at his face. His lips and tongue are peeled off and stuck to his
throat. There are no teeth.
During my one day visit, I see many bodies. Some without
hands. Some without heads. Throughout the day, I quietly probe for
answers to my primary question: how many U.S. soldiers have died in
combat. At the end of my day, during an informal chat with a morgue
secretary, I stumble upon my first clue that, once again, combat
deaths are being underreported.
"When the (combat) deaths aren't on TV," the worker tells me,
"they say the death was a 'training accident'." She says the official
Pentagon figures are really only one-fourth of the true combat death
toll. She estimates the mortuary had processed "about 200" combat
casualties. At the time - February 28 -the official Pentagon combat
death toll stood at just 55, according to DoD spokeswoman Susan
Hansen.
My adrenaline spurts with the frenzy of a journalist about to
feast upon a scoop. Ahhh, a scandal after all!
As the reality that I cannot easily confirm her claims sinks
in, I am equally struck by the triviality of the story. So what if
another hundred or two hundred U.S. soldiers died by Iraqi machine gun
fire and not the various truck accidents and helicopter crashes as
reported? For every dead U.S. soldier being carefully reconstructed
and shipped home, probably a thousand dead Iraqi's disappeared into
the desert sand.
The U.S. military has promised they will make no public
attempt to estimate Iraqi casualties. It is a complicated task and it
does not fit into their public relations agenda. Few media
organizations are bothering to investigate Iraqi casualties, but the
low-end estimates begin at 80,000 and the Iraqi civil war is just now
beginning.
After completing 7 months of military-led obedience lessons,
the U.S. press remains paralyzed when faced with perhaps the war's
most important story - the number of souls sacrificed on the alter of
war. Who can now deny the Pentagon's other smashing victory - the
triumph over the poorly organized forces previously known as the free
press. ENDIT
Jonathan Franklin is a free-lance reporter living in San
Francisco. His work has appeared in the Village Voice, SPIN Magazine
and the New York Times. Anyone wishing to share information about the
coverup of U.S. casualties should call him: (415)-626-0309. A longer
version of Franklin's mortuary adventures will appear in the May isue
of SPIN.
-- end of text --
** End of text from cdp:mideast.gulf **
Former Attorney-General of the United States, Ramsey Clark went to
Iraq during the period of Bush's heavy bombing raids. Upon his return,
he held a press conference in New York City on Feb. 11, 1991 which was
broadcast over Pacifica Radio Network station WBAI-FM (99.5).
He covered over 2,000 miles during his weeklong stay in Iraq, and
during his travels, he commented, the government of Iraq didn't try
to direct his movements. He said that with all the devastation in
Iraq, it could not have done so anyway. There was just he, a cameraman
and a driver in his car, and he said that the driver obeyed all his
instructions. The following is a transcript, which I made from a tape
recording of the broadcast, capturing nearly everything he said.
RAMSEY CLARK:
The reports of the number of sorties over Iraq led me to the
concern that there must be extensive civilian casualties .....
The head of the civil defense in Basra agreed that when the bombs
started falling in the middle of the night, he would come and
take us to the scene .....
The cities of Basra and Baghdad contain a good 25% of the
population of the country .....
Once we got on the road, we'd see smoke and just go where the
smoke was -- that sort of thing .....
The damage that we saw was staggering in its expanse .....
For instance, in a city like Basra, you can see six continuous
city blocks that are almost rubble. They were homes. You'd see a
guy sitting out there because they kind of watch over what's left .....
You get 50 miles down the road, and there's a bridge out .....
We saw hundreds of dwellings demolished .....
We got to one place in Baghdad. It was a heavy concrete home --
three floors and heavy concrete slabs, and there was a 500 lb.
bomb hanging off the top. It hadn't gone off. And two had hit
nearby and pretty much killed the family. The father was badly
burned and in the hospital. Whether he would live or not, we
didn't know. And there were a hundred angry people standing
around wondering why these homes have been bombed. You look around
and you don't see anything that looks like any target whatsoever.
You only see homes. You go to the centre of a town ..... Devonia
..... and there are three hotels destroyed ..... the largest one
had about fifty rooms ..... a lawyer's office, doctor's office,
shops. The central market in Basra has about a thousand shops --
and here you see a crater that's bigger than the White House
swimming pool, except it's round. Its right at the entrance to
the market and it shattered everything. And it landed right on a
supermarket. It's not there anymore. I mean it's just gone. And
around, you just see damage, and there's no possible military
target there. Driving through the countryside, you see food
processing places, if they're big, fairly systematically hit.
You see extensive bombing around bridges. It's hard to hit a
bridge, apparently. I even saw a U.S. Government count and they
said it took 500 and some sorties to hit a bridge, and they hit 31.
But there're people living all around them. There's a big river
through Baghdad and there're a lot of bridges across it. And people
don't stay away from them. They build right up toward them.
In Baghdad, the Ministry of Justice building has all its windows
shattered. And right there -- and I think he was trying to hit
the bridge, probably, because there's just absolutely nothing else
there [remaining]. But he didn't hit the bridge and he had four bombs
coming in there, and he just knocked out all these .... It's a poor
part of town -- little shops and stores. And the merchants and the
people who survived, they've lost everything, and their families
were killed and all.
The mosques: we came upon one mosque in Basra. It was particularly
tragic, it was way out in the countryside. There were three
or four bombs that hit around there that just kind of messed
everything up. When you hit a mosque, it's got no internal support,
just this big dome, so it just comes down. It collapses in rubble.
And there was a family of twelve who had sought refuge in there.
They found ten bodies in the mosque. The minaret was still standing
there. Every type of civilian structure you could think of ....
On the highways, I think we put over 1,400 miles on the highways,
and we saw hundreds and hundreds of vehicles damaged or destroyed.
We saw a lot of these oil trucks. They were burned up pretty bad.
But you don't find anything that looks like arms in there. When
[Secretary of State] Jim Baker says that they were carrying arms,
he's talking about something he does not know. Now, in Jordan,
along the road, we saw scores and scores of these trucks. They're
pouring out, bringing oil from Iraq to Jordan, which has an
economic crisis ..... When you're driving down the road, what you
see are trucks -- a lot of tractor-trailers. We weren't ten miles
into the country when we came upon a tractor-trailer that was on
fire ..... John Alpert gets his camera out and he's taking a
picture at night. It's dark. You don't leave your lights on, I'll
tell you. I said "What is this here?" I thought it was sand. I
picked it up and it was grain -- feed. Looked like animal feed.
They hit that truck and it's burning. And another one carrying
asphalt tiles.
Buses, public buses, painted baby blue -- and they're hit by
shrapnel and torn up -- burned. Mini-vans, taxis -- lots of
private cars -- lots of private cars, on the highway from Baghdad
to Amman. Not a military target on the scene. ..... We didn't see a
single tank that had been hit. We didn't see a single armored car
that had been hit, or an armored personnel carrier. .....
In every city, town and village, we went in to see if anybody had
running water. There's no running water in the city of Baghdad. .....
The Minister of Health said the single most important and urgent
health problem in the country is bad water. Tens of thousands of
people are getting sick and some are dying -- from bad water.
There's no heat. There's no electricity. We've systematically
destroyed electric plants. Some people have little gasoline
generators, who can afford them -- like CNN. In the hospital, you
see a few lights on in emergency rooms -- but you go into a ward
at night .... We went into four hospitals. There are people
badly injured: men, women and children. Lots of children.
[JD: It's understandable that there would be lots of children
because half of Iraq's population consists of children under the
age of fifteen.]
Lots of women. A little girl twelve years old -- her leg cut off
very near the hip, and no pain killer. And it's cold in there.
Prior to performing surgery, the doctors are unable to wash their
hands. There's no water. One doctor told me, "I hate my hands.
We've got no gloves. I go from this wounded person to this wounded
person to this wounded person, and I can't wash my hands."
It was getting to him! And people moaning in pain that you don't
hear here [in the U.S.A.] because we anesthetize them when it
gets that bad.
When Gen. Colin Powell says that this is a party -- which he's said
in his press conferences -- he ought to think about the civilian
population, or those hospitals in Iraq, and see what kind of
a party he thinks it is.
RAMSEY CLARK:
When President Bush talks about pinpoint bombing, let me tell
you, I didn't see any "collateral military damage." This is an
attack on the people of Iraq -- the economy of Iraq. You tell me
what municipal water in Mosul has to do with liberating Kuwait --
or bombing the bridges in Baghdad, or trying to .....
We're bombing the civilian population. The hospitals have been
hit. The Teaching Hospital in Basra doesn't have a window in it.
It was out of operation for a week, when they needed it most.
They've got a lot of injured people there. I walked down there at
night and here a bomb had hit a family club, and thank God it was
closed because it would have killed scores and scores of people
if it had been open.
The bombing is a violation of international law, which all of us
should always remember, protects civilians. You don't kill
civilians! The United States of America doesn't go around killing
civilians! And there're not hitting military targets. If they are,
why can't you find some shreds of soldiers' clothing. All you
find is the people's clothing scattered around, and their
possessions scattered around in their residential areas. That's
what's happening!
Food, gasoline: VERY hard to get. The gas stations, all up and
down the roads, are hit. Road repair camps are hit. They don't
want you to repair the road from Amman to Baghdad. The idea that
military traffic is on that road .... If SCUDS are out there ....
You'd take a SCUD down a main highway? Why don't you see anything,
if they hit them?
These are violations of the Hague Conventions. They're violations
of the Geneva Conventions. They're violations of the Nuremburg
Principles. They're war crimes. And the idea that they are
encompassed within the U.N. Resolutions including 678, the
Security Council resolution, is off-the-wall.
How can destroying civilian life in northern Iraq, or central
Iraq, or any place in Iraq, except mass troop formations (and
there are plenty of them out there) have anything to do with the
liberation of ... [Kuwait]? There's nothing in there that says
we have a right to go in -- and of course we couldn't get a right
from anybody because, in natural law and in international law,
there's no right, ever, to destroy civilian life or non-combatant
life, which would include the government offices. Who do you
think works in the telephone company? A bunch of soldiers?
People work in there! And all those buildings that are hit in
Baghdad. People work in there -- civilians, overwhelmingly.
And we're just "bombing them back into the stone age", as people
liked to say about Vietnam. .....
What kind of military pride could you have in beating up on a
poor third-world country like that? Their per capita income is
about $2,400. Ours is $19,000.
We are raining death and destruction, with our technology, on the
life in Iraq. And there ought to be a cessation of the bombing
now. And anyone who dares to say that these are "surgical strikes"
ought to go into those hospitals and see what kind of surgery
they're having to do because of them -- on little babies, women
and children. If the United States of America cares about its
character, it had better stop that bombing. You can never have the
respect or the good will of the people of the planet, including
hundreds of millions of Arabs, a billion Moslems, or just poor
people anywhere, if you use your technology to destroy their lives.
INITIAL COMPLAINT
CHARGING
GEORGE BUSH, DAN QUAYLE, JAMES BAKER, DICK CHENEY,
WILLIAM WEBSTER, COLIN POWELL, NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF
AND OTHERS TO BE NAMED
WITH
CRIMES AGAINST PEACE, WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
AND OTHER CRIMINAL ACTS AND HIGH CRIMES IN VIOLATION OF
THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS, INTERNATIONAL LAW, THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AND LAWS MADE IN
PURSUANCE THEREOF.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
These charges have been prepared prior to the first hearing of
the Commission of Inquiry by its staff. They are based on direct
and circumstantial evidence from public and private documents,
official statements and admissions by the persons charged and
others, eyewitness accounts; Commission investigations and witness
interviews in Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere during and after
the bombing; photographs and video tape, expert analyses,
commentary and interviews, media coverage, published reports and
accounts gathered between December 1989 and May 1991. Commission
of Inquiry hearings will be held in key cities where evidence is
available supporting, expanding, adding, contradicting, disproving
or explaining these, or similar charges against the accused and
others of whatever nationality. When evidence sufficient to
sustain convictions of the accused or others is obtained and after
demanding the production of documents from the U.S. government, and
others, and requesting testimony from the accused, offering them a
full opportunity to present any defense personally, or by counsel,
the evidence will be presented to an International War Crimes
Tribunal. The Tribunal will consider the evidence gathered, seek
and examine whatever additional evidence it chooses and render its
judgment on the charges, the evidence and the law.
Since World War I, the United Kingdom, France and the United
States have dominated the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf region and its
oil resources. This has been accomplished by military conquest and
coercion, economic control and exploitation, and through surrogate
governments and their military forces. Thus from 1953 to 1979 in
the post World War II era, control over the region was exercised
primarily through U.S. influence and control over the Gulf state
sheikdoms, Saudi Arabia, and through the Shah of Iran. From 1953-
1979 the Shah of Iran acted as a Pentagon/CIA surrogate to police
the region. After the fall of the Shah and the seizure of U.S.
Embassy hostages in Teheran, the U.S. provided military aid and
assistance to Iraq, as did the USSR, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and most
of the Emirates in its war with Iran. U.S. policy during that
tragic eight year war, 1980-1988, is probably best summed up by
Henry Kissinger's early expression, "I hope they kill each other."
Throughout the seventy-five year period from Britain's
invasion of Iraq early in World War I to the destruction of Iraq in
1991 by U.S. air power, the United States and the United Kingdom
demonstrated no concern for democratic values, military aggression,
human rights, social justice, or political and cultural integrity
in the region. The U.S. supported the Shah of Iran for 25 years,
selling him more than 20 billion dollars of advanced military
equipment between 1972 and 1978 alone. Throughout this period, the
Shah and his brutal Savak had one of the worst human rights records
in the world. The U.S. supported Iraq in its wrongful aggression
against Iran ignoring its poor human rights record.
When the Iraqi government nationalized the Iraqi Petroleum
Company in 1972, the Nixon Administration embarked on a campaign to
destabilize the Iraqi government. It was then that the U.S. first
armed and then abandoned the Kurdish people in the 1970's, costing
them tens of thousands of lives. The U.S. manipulated the Kurds
through CIA and other agencies to attack Iraq, intending to harass
Iraq while maintaining Iranian supremacy at the cost of Kurdish
lives without intending any benefit to the Kurdish people, or an
autonomous Kurdistan.
The U.S., with close oil and other economic ties to Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, has fully supported both governments despite the
total absence of democratic institutions, their pervasive human
rights violations and the infliction of cruel, inhuman and
degrading punishments such as stoning to death for adultery and
amputation of a hand for property offenses.
The U.S., sometimes alone among nations, supported Israel when
it defied scores of U.N. resolutions concerning Palestinian rights,
during Israel's invasion of Lebanon which took tens of thousands of
lives and its continuing occupation of southern Lebanon, the Golan
Heights, the West Bank and Gaza.
The United States itself engaged in recent aggressions in
violation of international law by invading Grenada, bombing Tripoli
and Benghazi, financing the Contras in Nicaragua, UNITA in southern
Africa and supporting military dictatorships in Liberia, Chile, El
Salvador, Guatemala, the Philippines and many other places.
The U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989 involved the same
and additional violations of international law that apply to Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait. The U.S. invasion took between 1000 and 4000
Panamanian lives. The United States government is still covering up
the death toll. U.S. aggression caused massive property
destruction throughout Panama. According to U.S. and international
human rights organization estimates, Kuwait's casualties from
Iraq's invasion and the ensuing months of occupation were in the
"hundreds," between 300 and 600. Reports from Kuwait list 628
Palestinians killed by Kuwaiti death squads since the Sabah Royal
family regained control over Kuwait.
The United States changed its military plans for protecting
its control over oil and other interests in the Arabian Peninsula
in the late 1980's when it became clear that economic problems in
the USSR were debilitating its military capacity and Soviet forces
withdrew from Afghanistan. Thereafter, direct military domination
within the region became the U.S. strategy.
With the decline in U.S. oil production through 1989, experts
predicted U.S. oil imports from the Gulf would rise from 10% that
year to 25% by the year 2000. Japanese and European dependency is
much greater.
THE CHARGES
1. The United States engaged in a pattern of conduct
beginning in or before 1989 intended to lead Iraq
into provocations justifying U.S. military action
against Iraq and permanent U.S. military domination
of the Gulf.
____________________________________________________
In 1989, General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, and General Norman Schwarzkopf, Commander in Chief of the
Central Command, completely revised U.S. military operations and
plans for the Persian Gulf to prepare to intervene in a regional
conflict against Iraq. The CIA assisted and directed Kuwait in its
actions in violating OPEC oil production agreements, extracting
excessive amounts of oil from pools shared with Iraq, demanding
repayment of loans it made to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and
breaking off negotiations with Iraq over these disputes. The U.S.
intended to provoke Iraq into actions against Kuwait that would
justify U.S. intervention.
In 1989, CIA Director William Webster testified before the
Congress about the alarming increase in U.S. importation of Gulf
oil, citing U.S. rise in use from 5% in 1973 to 10% in 1989 and
predicting 25% of all U.S. oil consumption from the region by 2000.
In early 1990, General Schwarzkopf informed the Senate Armed
Services Committee of the new military strategy in the Gulf
designed to protect U.S. access to and control over Gulf oil in the
event of regional conflicts.
In July, 1990, General Schwarzkopf and his staff ran
elaborate, computerized war games pitting about 100,000 U.S. troops
against Iraqi armored divisions.
The U.S. showed no opposition to Iraq's increasing threats
against Kuwait. U.S. companies sought major contracts in Iraq.
The Congress approved agricultural loan subsidies to Iraq of
hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit U.S. farmers. However,
loans for food deliveries of rice, corn, wheat and other essentials
bought almost exclusively from the U.S. were cut off in the spring
of 1990 to cause shortages. Arms were sold to Iraq by U.S.
manufacturers. When Saddam Hussein requested U.S. Ambassador April
Glaspie to explain State Department testimony in Congress about
Iraq's threats against Kuwait, she assured him the U.S. considered
the dispute a regional concern, and it would not intervene. By
these acts, the U.S. intended to lead Iraq into a provocation
justifying war.
On August 2, 1990 Iraq occupied Kuwait without significant resistance.
On August 3, 1990 without any evidence of a threat to Saudi
Arabia, and King Fahd believed Iraq had no intention of invading
his country, President Bush vowed to defend Saudi Arabia. He sent
Secretary Cheney, General Powell and General Schwarzkopf almost
immediately to Saudi Arabia where on August 6, General Schwarzkopf
told King Fahd the U.S. thought Saddam Hussein could attack Saudi
Arabia in as little as 48 hours. The efforts toward an Arab
solution of the crisis were destroyed. Iraq never attacked Saudi
Arabia and waited over five months while the U.S. slowly built a
force of more than 500,000 and began the systematic destruction of
a defenseless Iraq and its military by aircraft and missiles. In
October 1990, General Powell referred to THE NEW MILITARY PLAN
DEVELOPED IN 1989. After the war, General Schwarzkopf referred to
EIGHTEEN MONTHS OF PLANNING FOR THE CAMPAIGN.
The U.S. retains troops in Iraq and throughout the region and
has announced its intention to maintain a permanent military
presence.
This course of conduct constitutes a crime against peace.
2. President Bush from August 2, 1990 intended,
and acted to prevent any interference with his
plan to destroy Iraq economically and militarily.
_________________________________________________
Without consultation or communication with Congress, President
Bush ordered 40,000 U.S. military personnel to advance the U.S.
build up in Saudi Arabia in the first week of August 1990. He
exacted a request from Saudi Arabia for U.S. military assistance
and on August 8 assured the world his acts were "wholly defensive."
He waited until after the November 1990 elections to announce his
earlier order sending more than 200,000 additional military
personnel, clearly an assault force, again without advising
Congress. As late as January 9, 1991 he insisted he had the
constitutional authority to attack Iraq without Congressional
approval.
While concealing his intention, President Bush continued the
military build up of U.S. forces unabated from August into January
1991 intending to attack and destroy Iraq. He pressed the military
to expedite preparation and to commence the assault before military
considerations were optimum. When General Dugan mentioned plans to
destroy the Iraqi civilian economy to the press on September 16, he
was removed from office.
President Bush coerced the United Nations Security Council
into an unprecedented series of resolutions, finally securing
authority for any nation in its absolute discretion by all
necessary means to enforce the resolutions. To secure votes the
U.S. paid multi-billion dollar bribes, offered arms for regional
wars, threatened and carried out economic retaliation, forgave
multi-billion dollar loans, offered diplomatic relations despite
human rights violations and in other ways corruptly exacted votes,
creating the appearance of near universal international approval of
U.S. policies toward Iraq. A country which opposed the U.S., as
Yemen did, lost millions in aid, as promised, the costliest vote it
ever cast.
President Bush consistently rejected and ridiculed Iraq's
efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution, beginning with Iraq's
August 12 proposal, largely ignored, and ending with its mid-
February peace offer which he called a "cruel hoax." For his part,
President Bush consistently insisted there would be no negotiation,
no compromise, no face saving, no reward for aggression.
Simultaneously, he accused Saddam Hussein of rejecting diplomatic
solutions.
President Bush led a sophisticated campaign to demonize Saddam
Hussein, calling him a Hitler, repeatedly citing reports of the
murder of hundreds of incubator babies he knew were false, accusing
Iraq of using chemical weapons on his own people and on the
Iranians, knowing U.S. intelligence believed the reports untrue.
After subverting every effort for peace, President Bush began
the destruction of Iraq, answering his own question, "Why not wait?
. . . The World could wait no longer."
The course of conduct constitutes a crime against peace.
3. President Bush ordered the destruction of
facilities essential to civilian life and
economic productivity throughout Iraq.
_________________________________________
Systematic aerial and missile bombardment of Iraq was ordered
to begin at 6:30 p.m. E.S.T. January 16, 1991, 18 1/2 hours after
the deadline set on the insistence of President Bush, in order to
be reported on prime time TV. The bombing continued for 42 days.
It met no resistance from Iraqi aircraft and no effective anti-
aircraft or anti-missile ground fire. Iraq was defenseless.
The United States concedes it flew 110,000 air sorties against
Iraq, dropping 88,000 tons of bombs, nearly 7 times the equivalent
of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. 93% of the bombs were
free falling bombs, most dropped from higher than 30,000 feet. Of
the remaining 7% of the bombs with electronically guided systems,
more than 25% missed their targets, nearly all caused damage
primarily beyond any identifiable target. Most of the targets were
civilian facilities.
The intention and effort of the bombing of civilian life and
facilities was to systematically destroy Iraq's infrastructure,
leaving it in a pre-industrial condition. Iraq's civilian
population was dependent on industrial capacities. The U.S.
assault left Iraq in a "near apocalyptic condition", as reported
by the first United Nations observers after the war. Among the
facilities targeted and destroyed were:
-- electric power generation, relay and transmission,
-- water treatment, pumping and distribution systems and
reservoirs,
-- telephone and radio exchanges, relay stations, towers and
transmission facilities,
-- food processing, storage and distribution facilities and
markets, infant milk formula and beverage plants, animal
vaccination facilities and irrigation sites
-- railroad transportation facilities, bus depots, bridges,
highway overpasses, highways, highway repair stations,
trains, buses and other public transportation vehicles,
commercial and private vehicles
-- oil wells and pumps, pipelines, refineries, oil storage
tanks, gasoline filling stations and fuel delivery tank
cars and trucks, and kerosene storage tanks
-- sewage treatment and disposal systems.
-- factories engaged in civilian production, e.g., textile
and automobile assembly
-- Historical markers and ancient sites
As a direct, intentional and foreseeable result of this
destruction, tens of thousands of people have died from dehydration,
dysentery and diseases caused by impure water, inability to obtain
effective medical assistance and debilitation from hunger, shock,
cold and stress. More will die until potable water, sanitary
living conditions, adequate food supplies and other necessities are
provided. There is a high risk of epidemics of cholera, typhoid,
hepatitis and other diseases as well as starvation and malnutrition
through the summer of 1991 and until food supplies are adequate and
essential services are restored.
Only the United States could have, and almost exclusively,
the United States conducted the destruction of Iraq. The conduct
violated the U.N. Charter, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the
Nuremberg Charter and the laws of armed conflict.
4. The United States intentionally bombed and destroyed
civilian life, commercial and business districts,
schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters,
residential areas, historical sites, private vehicles and
civilian government offices.
____________________________________________
The destruction of civilian facilities left the entire
civilian population without heat, cooking fuel, refrigeration,
potable water, telephones, power for radio or TV reception, public
transportation, fuel for private automobiles, limited food
supplies, closed schools, created massive unemployment, severely
limited economic activity and caused hospitals and medical services
to shut down. In addition, residential areas of every major city
and most towns and villages were targeted and destroyed. Bedouin
camps were attacked by U.S. aircraft. In addition to deaths and
injuries, the aerial assault destroyed 10-20,000 homes, apartments
and other dwellings. Commercial centers with shops, retail stores,
offices, hotels, restaurants and other public accommodations were
targeted and thousands were destroyed. Scores of schools,
hospitals, mosques and churches were damaged, or destroyed.
Thousands of civilian vehicles on highways, roads and parked on
streets and in garages were targeted and destroyed. These included
public buses, private vans and mini-buses, trucks, tractor
trailers, lorries, taxi cabs and private cars. The purpose of
this bombing was to terrorize the entire country, kill people,
destroy property, prevent movement, demoralize the people and force
the overthrow of the government.
As a result of the bombing of facilities essential to civilian
life, residential and other civilian buildings and areas at least
25,000 men, women and children were killed. The Red Crescent
Society of Jordan estimated 113,000 civilian dead, 60% children,
the week before the end of the war.
The conduct violated the U.N. Charter, the Hague and Geneva
Conventions, the Nuremberg Charter and the laws of armed conflict.
5. The United States intentionally bombed indiscriminately
throughout Iraq.
______________________________________
In aerial attacks, including strafing, over cities, towns, the
countryside and highways, United States aircraft bombed and strafed
indiscriminately. In every city and town bombs fell by chance far
from any conceivable target, whether a civilian facility, military
installation or military target. In the countryside random attacks
were made on travellers, villagers, even Bedouins. The purpose of
the attacks was to destroy life, property and terrorize the
civilian population. On the highways, private vehicles including
public buses, taxicabs and passenger cars were bombed and strafed
at random to frighten civilians from flight, from seeking food,
medical care, finding relatives or other uses of highways. The
effect was summary execution and corporal punishment
indiscriminately of men, women and children, young and old, rich
and poor, all nationalities including the large immigrant
populations, even Americans, all ethnic groups, including many
Kurds and Assyrians, all religions including Shia and Sunni
Moslems, Chaldeans and other Christians and Jews. U.S. deliberate
indifference to civilian and military casualties in Iraq, or their
nature, is exemplified by General Colin Powell's response to a
press inquiry about the number dead from the air and ground
campaigns "It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in."
The conduct violates Protocol I additional, Article 51.4 to
the Geneva Convention of 1977.
6. The United States intentionally bombed and destroyed
defenseless Iraqi military personnel, used excessive
force, killed soldiers seeking to surrender and in
disorganized individual flight, often unarmed and far
from any combat zones and randomly and wantonly killed
Iraqi soldiers and destroyed material after the cease
fire.
______________________________________________
In the first hours of the aerial and missile bombardment, the
United States destroyed most military communications and began the
systematic killing of soldiers who were incapable of defense or
escape and the destruction of military equipment. Over a period of
42 days, U.S. bombing killed tens of thousands of defenseless
soldiers, cut off most of their food, water and other supplies and
left them in desperate and helpless disarray. Without significant
risk to its own personnel, the U.S. lead in the killing of at least
100,000 Iraqi soldiers at a cost of fewer than 120 U.S. combat
casualties according to the U.S. government. When it was
determined that the civilian economy and the military were
sufficiently destroyed, the U.S. ground forces moved into Kuwait
and Iraq attacking disoriented, disorganized, fleeing Iraqi forces
wherever they could be found killing thousands more and destroying
any equipment found. The slaughter continued after the cease fire.
For example, on March 2, the U.S. 24th Division forces engaged in
a four-hour assault against Iraqis just west of Basra. More than
750 vehicles were destroyed, thousands killed without U.S.
casualties. A U.S. Commander said "We really waxed them." It was
called a "Turkey Shoot", One Apache helicopter crew member yelled
"Say hello to Allah" as he launched a laser guided Hellfire
missile.
The intention was not to remove Iraq's presence from Kuwait.
It was to destroy Iraq. In the process there was great destruction
of property in Kuwait. The disproportion in death and destruction
inflicted on a defenseless enemy exceeded 1000 to one.
General Thomas Kelly commented on February 23 that by the time
the ground war begins "there won't be many of them left." General
Norman Schwarzkopf placed Iraqi military casualties at over
100,000. The intention was to destroy all military facilities and
equipment wherever located and to so decimate the military age male
population so that Iraq could not raise a substantial force for
half a generation.
The conduct violated the Charter of the United Nations, the
Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Charter and the laws of
armed conflict.
7. The United States used prohibited weapons capable of mass
destruction and inflicting indiscriminate death and
unnecessary suffering against both military and civilian
targets.
___________________________________________________
Among the known illegal weapons and illegal uses of weapons
employed by the United States are the following:
-- fuel air explosives capable of wide spread
incineration and death,
-- napalm
-- cluster and anti-personnel fragmentation bombs.
-- "superbombs", 2 1/2 ton devices, intended for
assassination of government leaders
Fuel air explosives were used against troops in place,
civilian areas, oil fields and fleeing civilians and soldiers on
two stretches of highway between Kuwait and Iraq. Included in fuel
air weapons used was the BLU-82, a 15,000 pound device capable of
disintegrating everything within hundreds of yards.
One seven mile stretch called the "Highway of Death" was
littered with hundreds of vehicles and thousands of dead. All were
fleeing to Iraq for their lives. Thousands were civilians of all
ages, including Kuwaitis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Jordanians and
other nationalities. Another 60-mile stretch of road to the east
was strewn with the remnants of tanks, armored cars, trucks,
ambulances and thousands of bodies following an attack on convoys
on the night of February 25. The press reported no survivors are
known or likely. One flat bed truck contained nine bodies, their
hair and clothes were burned off, skin incinerated by heat so
intense it melted the windshield onto the dashboard.
[JD: You can help Ramsey Clark in his struggle for justice
by calling his International Action Center in New York City
at (212) 633-6646.]
Napalm was used against civilians, military personnel and to
start fires. Oil well fires in both Iraq and Kuwait were
intentionally started by U.S. aircraft dropping napalm and other
heat intensive devices.
Cluster and anti-personnel fragmentation bombs were used in
Basra and other cities, and towns, against the convoys described
above and against military units. The CBU-75 carries 1800 bomblets
called Sadeyes. One type of Sadeyes can explode before hitting the
ground, on impact, or be timed to explode at different times after
impact. Each bomblet contains 600 razor sharp steel fragments
lethal up to 40 feet. The 1800 bomblets from one CBU 75 can cover
an area equal to 157 football fields with deadly shrapnel.
"Superbombs" were dropped on hardened shelters, at least two
in the last days of the assault, with the intention of
assassinating President Saddam Hussein. One was misdirected. The
U.S. attempted to assassinate Col. Muammar Qaddafy by laser
directed bombs in its attack on Tripoli, Libya in April 1986.
Illegal weapons killed thousands of civilians and soldiers.
The conduct violated the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the
Nuremberg Charter and the laws of armed conflict.
8. The United States intentionally attacked installations
in Iraq containing dangerous substances and forces.
__________________________________________
Despite the fact that Iraq used no nuclear or chemical weapons
and in the face of U.N. resolutions limiting the authorized means
of removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the U.S. intentionally bombed
alleged nuclear sites, chemical plants, dams and other dangerous
forces. The U.S. knew such attacks could cause the release of
dangerous forces from such installations and consequent severe
losses among the civilian population. While some civilians were
killed in such attacks, there are no reported cases of consequent
severe losses presumably because lethal nuclear materials, and
dangerous chemical and biological warfare substances were not
present at the sites bombed.
The conduct violates Protocol I Additional, Article 56, to the
Geneva Convention, 1977.
9. President Bush ordered U.S. forces to invade Panama
resulting in the deaths of 1000 to 4000 Panamanians and
the destruction of thousands of private dwellings, public
buildings and commercial structures.
_________________________________________________
On December 20, 1989 President Bush ordered a military assault
on Panama using aircraft, artillery, helicopter gunships and
experimenting with new weapons, including the Stealth bomber. The
attack was a surprise assault targeting civilian and non- combatant
government structures. In the El Chorillo district of Panama City
alone, hundreds of civilians were killed and between 15,000 and
30,000 made homeless. U.S. soldiers buried dead Panamanian in mass
graves, often without identification. The head of state, Manuel
Noriega, who was systematically demonized by the U.S. government
and press ultimately surrendered to U.S. forces and was brought to
Miami, Florida on extra territorial U.S. criminal charges.
The U.S. invasion of Panama violated all the international
laws Iraq violated when it invaded Kuwait and more. Many more
Panamanians were killed by U.S. forces than Iraq killed Kuwaitis.
President Bush violated the Charter of the United Nations, the
Hague and Geneva Conventions, committed crimes against peace, war
crimes and violated the U.S. Constitution and numerous U.S.
Criminal statutes in ordering and directing the assault on Panama.
10. President Bush obstructed justice and corrupted United
Nations functions as a means of securing power to commit
crimes against peace and war crimes.
___________________________________________________
President Bush caused the United Nations to completely bypass
Chapter VI provisions of its Charter for the Pacific Settlement of
Disputes. This was done in order to obtain Security Council
resolutions authorizing the use of all necessary means, in the
absolute discretion of any nation, to fulfill U.N. resolutions
directed against Iraq and which were used to destroy Iraq. To
obtain Security Council votes, the U.S. corruptly paid member
nations billions of dollars, provided them arms to conduct regional
wars, forgave billions in debts, withdrew opposition to a World
Bank loan, agreed to diplomatic relations despite human rights
violations and threatened economic and political reprisals. A
nation which voted against the United States, Yemen, was
immediately punished by the loss of millions of dollars in aid.
The U.S. paid the U.N. 187 million dollars to reduce the amount of
dues it owed to the U.N. to avoid criticism of its coercive
activities. The United Nations, created to end the scourge of war,
became an instrument of war and condoned war crimes.
The conduct violates the Charter of the United Nations and the
Constitution and laws of the United States.
11. President Bush usurped the Constitutional power of
Congress as a means of securing powerto commit crimes
against peace, war crimes,and other high crimes.
President Bush intentionally usurped Congressional power,
ignored its authority, and failed and refused to consult with the
Congress. He deliberately misled, deceived, concealed and made
false representations to the Congress to prevent its free
deliberation and informed exercise of legislature power. President
Bush individually ordered a naval blockade against Iraq, itself an
act of war. He switched U.S. forces from a wholly defensive
position and capability to an offensive capacity for aggression
against Iraq without consultation with and contrary to assurances
given to the Congress. He secured legislation approving
enforcement of U.N. resolutions vesting absolute discretion in any
nation, providing no guidelines and requiring no reporting to the
U.N., knowing he intended to destroy the armed forces and civilian
economy of Iraq. Those acts were undertaken to enable him to
commit crimes against peace and war crimes.
The conduct violates the Constitution and laws of the United
States, all committed to engage in the other impeachable offenses
set forth in this Complaint.
[You can help Ramsey Clark in his struggle for justice by calling
his International Action Center in New York City at (212) 633-6646.]
12. The United States waged war on the environment.
_______________________________________________
Pollution from the detonation of 88,000 tons of bombs,
innumerable missiles, rockets, artillery and small arms with the
combustion and fires they caused and by 110,000 air sorties at a
rate of nearly two per minute for six weeks has caused enormous
injury to life and the ecology. Attacks by U.S. aircraft caused
much if not all of the worst oil spills in the Gulf. Aircraft and
helicopters dropping napalm and fuel-air explosives on oil wells,
storage tanks and refineries caused oil fires throughout Iraq and
many, if not most, of the oil well fires in Iraq and Kuwait. The
intentional destruction of municipal water systems, waste material
treatment and sewage disposal systems constitutes a direct and
continuing assault on life and health throughout Iraq.
The conduct violated the U.N. Charter, the Hague and Geneva
Conventions, the laws of armed conflict and constituted war crimes
and crimes against humanity.
13. President Bush encouraged and aided Shiite Muslims and
Kurds to rebel against the government of Iraq causing
fratricidal violence, emigration, exposure, hunger and
sickness and thousands of deaths. After the rebellion
failed, the U.S. invaded and occupied parts of Iraq
without authority in order to increase division and
hostilities within Iraq.
____________________________________________________
Without authority from the Congress or the U.N., President
Bush continued his imperious military actions after the cease fire.
He encouraged and aided rebellion against Iraq, failed to protect
the warring parties, encouraged migration of whole populations
placing them in jeopardy from the elements, hunger and disease.
After much suffering and many deaths, President Bush then without
authority used U.S. military forces to distribute aid at and near
the Turkish border, ignoring the often greater suffering among
refugees in Iran. He then arbitrarily set up bantu-like
settlements for Kurds in Iraq and demanded Iraq pay for U.S. costs.
When Kurds chose to return to their homes in Iraq, he moved U.S.
troops further into northern Iraq against the will of the
government and without authority.
The conduct violated the Charter of the United Nations,
international law, the constitution and laws of the United States
and the laws of Iraq.
14. President Bush intentionally deprived the Iraqi people of
essential medicines, potable water, food and other
necessities.
_________________________________________________
A major component of the assault on Iraq was the systematic
deprivation of essential human needs and services. To break the
will of the people, destroy their economic capability, reduce their
numbers and weaken their health, the United States:
-- imposed and enforced embargoes preventing the
shipment of needed medicines, water purifiers,
infant milk formula, food and other supplies,
-- individually, without congressional authority,
ordered a U.S. naval blockade of Iraq, an act of
war, to deprive the Iraqi people of needed
supplies,
-- froze funds of Iraq and forced other nations to do
so, depriving Iraq of the ability to purchase
needed medicines, food and other supplies,
-- controlled information about the urgent need for
such supplies to prevent sickness, death and
threatened epidemic, endangering the whole society,
-- prevented international organizations, governments
and relief agencies from providing needed supplies
and obtaining information concerning needs,
-- failed to assist or meet urgent needs of huge
refugee populations including Egyptians, Indians,
Pakistanis, Yemenis, Sudanese, Jordanians,
Palestinians, Sri Lankans, Filipinos, and
interfered with efforts of others to do so,
-- consistently diverted attention from health and
epidemic threats within Iraq even after advertising
the plight of Kurdish people on the Turkish border
caused by the U.S.
-- deliberately bombed the electrical grids causing
the closure of hospitals and laboratories, loss of
medicine and essential fluids and blood.
-- deliberately bombing of food storage, fertilizer,
and seed storage facilities
As a result of these acts, thousands of people died, many
more suffered illnesses and permanent injury. As a single
illustration, Iraq consumed infant milk formula at a rate of 2500
tons per month during the first seven months of 1990. From
November 1, 1990 to February 7, 1991 Iraq was able to import only
17 tons. Its own production capacity was destroyed. Many Iraqis
believed that Pres. Bush intended that their infants die, because
he targeted their food supply. The Red Crescent Society of Iraq
estimated 3000 infant deaths as of February 7, 1991 resulting from
infant milk formula and infant medication shortages.
This conduct violates the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other covenants and
constituted a crime against humanity.
15. The United States continued its assault on Iraq after the
cease fire, invading and occupying areas at will.
____________________________________________
The United States has acted with dictatorial authority over
Iraq and its external relations since the end of the military
conflict. It has shot and killed Iraqi military personnel,
destroyed air craft and materiel at will, occupied vast areas of
Iraq in the north and south and consistently threatened use of
force against Iraq.
This conduct violates the sovereignty of a nation, exceeds
authority in U.N. resolutions, is unauthorized by the Constitution
and laws of the United States and constitutes war crimes.
[You can help Ramsey Clark in his struggle for justice by calling
his International Action Center in New York City at (212) 633-6646.]
16. The United States has violated and condoned violations
of human rights, civil liberties and the U.S. Bill of
Rights in the United States, in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and
elsewhere to achieve its purpose of military domination.
______________________________________________
Among the many violations committed or condoned by the U.S.
government are the following:
-- illegal surveillance, arrest, interrogation and
harassment of Arab-American, Iraqi-American, and
U.S. resident Arabs,
-- illegal detention, interrogation and treatment of
Iraqi prisoners of war,
-- aiding and condoning Kuwaiti summary executions,
assaults, torture and illegal detention of
Palestinians and other residents in Kuwait after
the U.S. occupation,
-- unwarranted, discriminatory and excessive
prosecution and punishment of U.S. military
personnel who refused to serve in the Gulf, sought
conscientious objector status or protested U.S.
policies.
Persons were killed, assaulted, tortured, illegally detained
and prosecuted, harassed and humiliated as a result of these
policies.
The conduct violates the Charter of the United Nations, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Hague and Geneva
Conventions and the Constitution and laws of the United States.
17. The United States, having destroyed Iraq's economic base,
demands reparations which will permanently impoverish
Iraq and threaten its people with famine and epidemic.
____________________________________________________
Having destroyed lives, property and essential civilian
facilities in Iraq which the U.S. concedes will require 50 billion
dollars to replace (estimated at 200 billion dollars by Iraq),
killed at least 125,000 people by bombing and many thousands more
by sickness and hunger, the U.S. now seeks to control Iraq
economically even as its people face famine and epidemic. Damages
including casualties in Iraq, systematically inflicted by the U.S.,
exceed all damages, casualties and costs of all other parties to
the conflict combined many times over. Reparations under these
conditions are an exaction of tribute for the conqueror from a
desperately needy country. The United States seeks to force Iraq
to pay for damage to Kuwait largely caused by the U.S. and even to
pay U.S. costs for its violations of Iraqis sovereignty in
occupying northern Iraq to further manipulate the Kurdish
population there. Such reparations are a neo-colonial means of
expropriating Iraq's oil, natural resources and human labor.
The conduct violates the Charter of the United Nations and the
Constitution and laws of the United States.
18. President Bush systematically manipulated, controlled,
directed, misinformed and restricted press and media
coverage to achieve propagandistic support for his
military and political goals.
________________________________________________
The Bush Administration achieved a running five months media
commercial for militarism and individual weapons systems. The
American people were seduced into the celebration of a slaughter by
controlled propaganda demonizing Iraq, assuring the world no harm
would come to Iraqi civilians, deliberately spreading false stories
of atrocities including chemical warfare threats, deaths of
incubator babies and threats to the entire region by a new Hitler.
The press received virtually all its information from or by
permission of the Pentagon. Efforts were made to prevent any
adverse information or opposition views from being heard. CNN's
limited presence in Baghdad was described as Iraqi propaganda.
Independent observers, eye witnesses' photos and video tapes with
information about the effects of the U.S. bombing were excluded
from the media. Television network ownership, advertisers
newspaper ownership, elite columnists and commentators intimidated
and instructed reporters and selected interviewees. They formed a
near single voice of praise for U.S. militarism often exceeding the
Pentagon in bellicosity.
The American people and their democratic institutions were
deprived of information essential to sound judgment and were
regimented, despite profound concern, to support a major
neo-colonial intervention and war of aggression. The principal
purpose of the First Amendment to the United States was to assure
the press and the people the right to criticize their government
with impunity. This purpose has been effectively destroyed in
relation to U.S. military aggression since the press was denied
access to assaults on Grenada, Libya, Panama and now, on a much
greater scale, against Iraq.
This conduct violates the First Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States and is part of a pattern of conduct intended
to create support for conduct constituting crimes against peace and
war crimes.
19. The United States has by force secured a permanent
military presence in the Gulf, the control of its oil
resources and geopolitical domination of the Arabian
Peninsula and Gulf region.
__________________________________________
The United States has committed the acts described in this
complaint to create a permanent U.S. military presence in the
Persian Gulf, to dominate its oil resources until depleted and to
maintain geo-political domination over the region.
The conduct violates the Charter of the United Nations,
international law, and the Constitution and laws of the United
States.
Scope of the Inquiry
The Commission of Inquiry will focus on U.S. criminal conduct
because of its destruction of Iraq, killing at least 125,000
persons directly by its bombing while proclaiming its own combat
losses as less than 120, because it destroyed the economic base of
Iraq and because its acts are still inflicting consequential deaths
that may reach hundreds of thousands. The Commission of Inquiry
will seek and accept evidence of criminal acts by any person, or
government, related to the Gulf conflict, because it believes
international law must be applied uniformly. It believes that
"victors' justice" is not law, but the extension of war by force of
the prevailing party. The U.S. Senate, European Community Foreign
Ministers, and the western press, even former Nuremberg
prosecutors, have overwhelmingly called for war crimes trials for
Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership alone. Even Mrs. Barbara
Bush has said she would like to see Saddam Hussein hung, albeit
without mentioning a trial. Comprehensive efforts to gather and
evaluate evidence, objectively judge all the conduct that
constitutes crimes against peace and war crimes and to present
these facts for judgement to the court of world opinion requires
that at least one major effort focus on the United States. The
Commission of Inquiry believes its focus on U.S. criminal acts is
important, proper and the only way to bring the whole truth, a
balanced perspective and impartiality in application of legal
process to this great human tragedy.
Ramsey Clark
May 9, 1991
[You can help Ramsey Clark in his struggle for justice by
calling his International Action Center in New York City
at (212) 633-6646.]
INITIAL LEGAL MATERIALS
The modern law of war and peace is generally agreed to begin
with the publication in 1625 of De Jure Belli ac Pacis by Hugo
Grotius. Grotius believed the care to preserve society was the
source of all law. He recognized the primary importance of
preventing war. Still, with war the common condition of the Europe
in which he lived, he sought to identify rules of war which would
limit its horror. While for many the idea of rules of war is a
contradiction, it is such rules that international law struggles to
establish in its care to preserve society until war itself is
abolished.
Central to all modern efforts to limit war has been the desire
to protect civilians, non combatants and resources and facilities
essential to their survival. With the growth of technology in
warfare, efforts have been made for over 150 years to prohibit or
restrict uses of weapons of mass destruction and those causing
unusually cruel or painful death or injury.
An essential standard throughout the rules of armed conflict
is the prohibition of the use of excessive force and affliction of
wanton death or destruction. The concept of proportionality, that
force be carefully limited to that required to defend or achieve
legitimate military ends, is integrated into the laws of war in all
its applications.
For purposes of identifying criminal acts in the planning,
preparation and execution of the Gulf conflict, a handful of basic
laws are most important. Sections 22 and 23 of the regulations
annexed to Hague Convention No. IV, Respecting Laws and Customs of
War on Land (1907), for example, establish the principles that the
means and manner of waging war are not unlimited and that weapons
causing unnecessary suffering are prohibited.
The Charter of the United Nations is basic to the hope for
peace. It is the appropriate place to begin any legal analysis of
crimes against peace and war crimes in our times.
U.S. military service manuals provide Rules of Engagement for
U.S. Forces taken largely from customary international law and the
developing laws of armed conflicts.
The United States Constitution, and particularly, Article I,
section 8 and Article II, section 2, allocate powers over war and
peace between the Congress and the President. Numerous federal
criminal statutes proscribe activity affecting peace or prohibited
in war.
There are many other Covenents, Conventions, treaties,
regulations, and draft codes that are important to a complete
analysis. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an
important statement because a respect for the rights of others is
necessary to any real peace. The texts and partial texts of three
key and binding sources of international law are set forth as
follows:
I. United Nations Charter pp
II. Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal pp
III. Geneva Conventions pp
I. CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime
has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human
rights, in the dignity and worth of the
human person, in the equal rights of men and
women, and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice
and respect for the obligations arising from
treaties and other sources of international
law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better
standards of life in larger freedom,...
Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the
Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with
the following Principles:
l. The Organization is based on the principle of the
sovereign equality of all its members.
* * *
3. All Members shall settle their international
disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that
international peace and security, and justice, are
not endangered.
* * *
4. All Members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any
state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the
Purposes of the United Nations.
Chapter Vl of the Charter is devoted to Pacific Settlement
of Disputes. Its Article 33 states:
Chapter Vl
PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
Article 33
l. The parties to any dispute, the continuance of
which is likely to endanger the maintenance of internation-
al peace and sucurity, shall, first of all, seek a solution
by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation,
arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional
agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of
their own choice.
2. The Security Council shall, when it deems
necessary, call upon the parties to settle their
disputes by such means.
[JD: You can help Ramsey Clark in his struggle for justice
by calling his International Action Center in New York City
at (212) 633-6646.]
The nearly 70 days of the Israeli siege of West Beirut caused human
suffering on a scale not often witnessed since the end of World War II.
The Israeli blockade of West Beirut which sealed off the city from
medical supplies, added to the trauma of the half million residents
in the western sector and has been widely reported. With respect to
the bombing of August 7, U.S. Ambassador Robert Dillon cabled
Washington as follows:
"Simply put, tonight's saturation shelling was as intense as anything
we have seen. There was no "pinpoint accuracy" against targets in
"open spaces". It was not a response to Palestinian fire. This was a
blitz against West Beirut .... The magnitude of tonight's action is
difficult to convey. The flare of exploding shells reflected against
the cloud of smoke was an awesome sight .... a city burning."
The final calculus from the siege is still incomplete and may remain
so for a long while. It will be some time until the mass graves at
Sabra and Shatila are exhumed and the truckloads of bodies and people
carted off by the Phalange and their associates during the massacre
are accounted for.
According to initial Lebanese government statistics, now more than a
year old, compiled by local Lebanese police districts using death
certificates and hospital records, 19,085 persons were found to have
been killed as of mid-November, 1982. Of these, 6,775 were killed
during the 70 day period in Beirut. 12,310 were killed elsewhere in
Lebanon, and 30,302 wounded. As of March 1, 1984, the number is
estimated by the Lebanese government to have risen to 33,000 dead and
49,000 wounded. The Lebanese government found that 84 percent of the
Beirut casualties were civilians. This figure is approximately 15
percent higher than had been estimated by the Palestine Liberation
Organization, whose calculations had been dismissed by the Israeli
government as cynical exaggerations and propaganda.
According to the Lebanese police, over 2,300 of those killed or
wounded during the first four months of the invasion were under 15
years of age, and more than 1,700 were over age 50. Of the 30,302
wounded during this same four month period, more than 1,800 required
amputations because of fragmentation bomb or cluster bomb wounds,
according to medical personnel working with the Lebanese Red Cross.
In addition, more than 350,000 people were made homeless, 100,000
were without shelter, and several hundred thousand made destitute.
The Lebanese government has estimated that physical damage from the
invasion amounted to more than $3 billion, while destroyed housing
alone accounted for nearly $1 billion. The cost of rebuilding Lebanon
is now estimated to be $24 billion.
Of the 25 hospitals and clinics operating in West Beirut during late
July and August, 1982, many were partially destroyed by Israeli
aerial, sea and land bombardment, despite exhibiting Red Cross and/or
Red Crescent insignias. Dr. Samir Thabit, acting president of the
American University of Beirut, stated that he considered having the
large red cross painted outside Jessup Hall and West Hall removed.
His reason was that from what he had been advised by civil defense
workers and Red Cross personnel around West Beirut, the Red Cross
insignia actually appeared to draw Israeli fire -- certain elements
of the Israeli military apparently feeling that bombing hospitals
presented an opportunity to "finish the job" against wounded
"terrorists" and their sympathizers. A partial list of damaged or
destroyed hospitals and clinics in the Beirut area, some of which
were hit by cluster bombs, includes the following:
Haifa Hospital
Dar Al Ajazy Handicapped Center
Islamic Mental Hospital
Al Kafayat School for the Disabled
Ras Beirut Hospital
Makassed Home for the Elderly
Development Organization for Human Abilities at Aramoun (DOHA)
(an International Year of the Handicapped project)
Al Ramadham Orphanage in Ouzai
Islamic Psychiatric Hospital in Beirut
The Armenian Hospital at Aazzouniye, 16 miles southeast of Beirut
Al Mau Hospital
Triumph Hotel Clinic
La Hout Hospital (Near East School of Theology)
Gaza Hospital
Berbir Hospital
Makassed Hospital
Mouseitbi Medical Center
Antranic Canter
French Center (College Protestante)
The functioning clinics of West Beirut were primarily makeshift, put
together from the salvage and supplies of hospitals and clinics bombed
earlier in the invasion. La Hout Hospital, for example, was set up in
the library of the Near East School of Theology, and other clinics
were set up at the Triumph Hotel and at the French Protestant College,
Basta Center, and others. Many of the most serious cases were
transferred to the American University Hospital (AUH), a facility
partly funded by the U.S. Government.
On August 4, 1982, a day of intensive Israeli bombing and shelling,
more than 2,000 refugees sought haven in the AUH. These desperate
people correctly believed that, partly because the hospital was
American, they might be safe at AUH. They slept in the hallways and
many children were placed, with blankets, in large "Project Hope"
cardboard boxes.
page 516
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CLAUDIA WRIGHT, Journalist, England
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"WITH ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE OF THE INVASION, THE UNITED STATES
SENT ARMS TO ISRAEL AND MOVED IN SHIPS."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Lebanon War has differed from the four earlier Arab-Israeli
wars in the ferocity of the Israeli attack and the degree of United
States involvement. There has been widespread speculation in the
international press, bordering on conviction in the Arab world,
that these two things are connected -- part of a joint Israeli-
United States plan to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) and redraw the map of Lebanon once and for all.
.....
And the following evidence indicates that the Reagan Administration
did a great deal to encourage the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and
to assure its military success.
WHO'S TELLING THE TRUTH?
In an Israel radio interview on August 14, Israeli Defense Minister
General Ariel Sharon suggested that United States Secretary of
Defense Caspar Weinberger and former Secretary of State Alexander
Haig not only had advance knowledge of Israel's plans to invade
Lebanon, but also had approved those plans.
[JD: As you will eventually come to learn, just ONE of the reasons
that the corporate U.S. Government endorsed the invasion of
Lebanon is because wars reap vast sales for the American
military-industrial war profiteers.]
Weinberger's office responded by calling Sharon's claim untrue,
saying, "At no time did the Israeli defense minister say or allude
to the fact that Israel had plans to invade Lebanon."
Weinberger's statement is not an outright denial of Sharon's claim.
Instead, he evades the issue of how much he knew when Sharon was in
Washington last May. The Israeli general did not need to discuss
the invasion plans directly, because those details had already been
made known to the Pentagon from U.S. intelligence reports and from
earlier visits to Washington by military officers, including the
visit, just days before Sharon arrived, of his aide, Arye Ganger.
On May 20, as Sharon prepared to leave Israel for Washington, a
spokesman told the Tel Aviv newspaper Ma'ariv that "Jerusalem wants
to maintain complete freedom of action" regarding Lebanon. That was
a carte blanche for the Israeli Military, and apparently, nothing
Sharon was told at the Pentagon indicated that there were U.S.
reservations about Israel's plans. Indeed, everything that happened
during Sharon's visit between May 22 and 27 suggested the U.S.
Government's resolve to back him as much as possible.
On May 24, the Reagan Administration sent an informal notice to
Congress of its decision to sell Israel seventy-five F-16 jet
fighters, worth about three billion dollars. Two days later, an
Administration offer of another eleven F-15s [jet fighters], costing
five hundred and ten million dollars, cleared Congress. The offer
was then dispatched to Jerusalem. On the same day, the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee voted to add one hundred and twenty-five
million dollars to the seven hundred and eighty-five million dollars
in economic support funds already authorized for Israel in 1983,
and to convert the entire nine hundred and ten million dollars to a
grant, dropping the Reagan Administration proposal that one-third
be treated as a loan. The reason, the Senate Committee claimed, was
that "Israel's qualitative edge" in weaponry "continues to erode
.... necessitating increased arms purchases," at the same time that
heavy debts on past arms purchases were straining the Israeli
economy.
On May 26, former Secretary of State Haig gave a speech in Chicago
hinting, for the first time, at how far the United States was
prepared to go to find a new political solution in Lebanon, and how
far, therefore, the Israelis could go toward eliminating the
Palestinian and Syrian presence in Lebanon.
"The time has come," he said, "to take concerted action in support
of both Lebanon's territorial integrity within its internationally
recognized borders, and a strong central government capable of
promoting a free, open, democratic and traditionally pluralistic
society." To Sharon and the Israeli Cabinet, there was no doubt
what this "concerted action" meant. Former President of the United
States Jimmy Carter has said that he was told by "very knowledgeable
people in Israel" that their plans to invade Lebanon had been given
"a green light from Washington."
After Carter made these comments in an interview in the Atlanta
Constitution on August 19, Secretary of State George Shultz
responded by saying that Carter was "not correct." "My understanding
is that the United States Government was not informed, and the
United States Government was and is on the record as having opposed
the invasion." Like Weinberger's response to Sharon, this also
evades the specific contention that Washington knew of the invasion
in advance and tacitly gave its go-ahead. "It was possible," Shultz
said, that "somebody came through here and talked about [the
invasion] as a possibility."
Even if Sharon and his subordinates had spoken vaguely of their
plans, United States Naval deployments in the Eastern Mediterranean
could not have occurred without at least ten days advance warning of
the likely date of the Israeli attack. According to the Pentagon,
deployments were ordered even before Sharon had left Washington for
home, thereby stationing one of the most powerful United States
armadas ever assembled in the Eastern Mediterranean, offshore from
Lebanon at the same time that Israel invaded. The U.S. armada gave
that [Israeli] invasion vital protection from Soviet or Arab
threats from the west.
According to the Pentagon, in one of these deployments, the nuclear-
powered aircraft carrier USS Ranger was ordered to sail from San
Diego, California to the Indian Ocean to relieve the USS Kennedy.
The USS Ranger reached its station June 1, two days before the
shooting of the Israeli ambassador in Britain, Shlomo Argov, an
assassination attempt used by Israel to justify its attack on
Lebanon. The USS Kennedy then headed for the Suez Canal, passing
through immediately after the assassination attempt. By the time
Israeli forces had begun to move, the Kennedy had taken up a
position off the Lebanese coast, where its surveillance and
interceptor aircraft covered Israel itself and Israeli Naval
operations off the Lebanese coast from surprise air or sea attacks
from the west. The USS Ranger's relief of the USS Kennedy, said the
Pentagon officials at the time, was routine, but the timing of the
move and the Kennedy's new battle station were not.
page 519
In the afternoon of 25 June, the Israelis flew over the hospital and
dropped leaflets in Hebrew. Nobody could read them. I still wonder
what they meant. Everyone became scared. One or two hours later they
started heavy shelling, concentrated on the hospital. People rushed
to the cellar. I believe there were more than 100 civilians there.
We tried to continue and we did continue the operation treatment of
the injuries, but with each new explosion I believed it would be the
last one and that the building would fall to the ground. The people
were scared to death and so was I, and it was impossible to go
upstairs. I was on the ground floor at one time to give morphine to
the injured upstairs, but was literally hit to the ground by the
explosions outside. The patients on the first and second floor we had
to leave alone. A boy 17 years old, a nurse, he was the only one of
the staff who took care of the patients. He sat on the first floor
and talked calmly to patients during the shelling. He is the greatest
hero I have ever met. After three hours, it became dark and we
decided to evacuate.
When the dark came, the shelling became more scattered and it was
possible to escape. I was really impressed how they carried out the
evacuation. In less than half an hour all the patients were outside
and in security. First, the civilians, women and children, then the
patients and last, the staff. The last patient was in fact transported
directly from the operating theatre and was still under anaesthetic.
I will never forget the transport of this patient, his head between
my legs, working hard to keep his air-way free. The ambulance, without
lights throughout the blacked-out city. The story of the last patient
is an example of WHO became victims. He was 18 years old. He moved
with his family to a safe place in Beirut. He had begged his father
to let him take a short trip to their house to feed their animals, and
promised to be back in half an hour. The next day they met again in
our temporary clinic. The father was crying and the son without his leg.
To sum up, in my opinion there is no doubt that this was a deliberate
shelling of a fully operational hospital without military installations
or targets nearby. It was the second Palestinian hospital they had to
evacuate because of shelling. We heard from a further witness that
the first one was Akka, evacuated 22 June, I think. The Palestinians
had no hospital of their own remaining in operation. We evacuated to
the Theological School on Hamra Street, a safer place at that time,
but with no equipment or facilities at all, most of it being left in
Gaza. We had approximately 40 wounded patients and we faced many
difficulties in the next days. But step by step, it became possible.
I will finish with our departure some weeks later. Still, there were
very few foreign doctors and nurses inside Beirut. When we passed the
Israeli checkpoint, they checked our papers which declared we were
sent from the health services in Norway to do medical and humanitarian
work in Lebanon. The Israeli officer asked then: "Do you know the
rules?" "Rules, what kind of rules?" we replied. He said, "Okay --
you can go, but you can never, never come back." It seemed they wanted
to prevent health workers from entering Beirut at a time when the
civilians in Beirut cried out their need for help to the whole world.
This is a picture of our first patient, in a way our baptism by fire
in this cruel war. She was in a flat, I suppose ten minutes from Gaza
Hospital. The mother told us she was hit by a fragment which came
through the wall, and the mother ran through the camp during the very
heavy shelling with the little child in her arms; the child with
one arm already nearly amputated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DR. MADS GILBERT, Physician, Norway
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
QUITE OFTEN, OPERATIONS HAD TO BE CANCELLED BECAUSE INSTRUMENTS COULD
NOT BE PROPERLY WASHED BETWEEN OPERATIONS ... WOUND AND BONE INFECTIONS
WERE EXTREMELY COMMON AND IN SOME CASES WE DISCOVERED LARGE AMOUNTS
OF WORMS IN GANGRENOUS WOUNDS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I will testify about the conditions and problems for patients and
medical staff in West Beirut during this summer. I saw eight different
medical centres or hospitals ranging from the American University
Hospital to small underground first-aid stations in garages. Most of
my working time I spent at the provisional La Hout Medical Centre
located in the Near East School of Theology. This hospital was run in
cooperation between Lebanese, Palestinian and European medical workers,
headed and supervised by a joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee
organising the health and social work in West Beirut.
The main problems in the medical work were all directly or indirectly
caused by two factors: the systematic bombing and shelling by the
Israeli military forces; and a special method of warfare applied by
the same military forces: the blockade or siege of West Beirut.
To sum up, the main problems in the medical work were:
1. the number and severity of injured people;
2. the insufficient capacity of the medical system;
3. the deficiencies, due to the siege, of water, energy and various
medical equipment,etc.;
4. the insufficient security both for patients and staff; and
5. the fading infrastructure of the town, affecting the maintenance,
public services such as garbage emptying and street cleaning,
posing serious threats to hygiene.
Let me comment briefly on each of these points: first to the patients,
or to put it more precisely: the constant flow of injuries produced by
the Israeli military actions. All sorts of injuries were present, from
serious blast or fragmentation injury commonly seen, to minor cases.
Some 80 percent were civilians, the ratio between soldier and civilian
casualties being as low as 1 to 30 based on my own counting.
The injuries often demanded prompt reanimation and surgical action,
as was the case with many traumatic amputations. At La Hout, the mixed
Arab-European medical teams performed together some 270-300 major and
minor surgical procedures from the end of June to the end of August.
The capacity of the medical system of West Beirut was reduced overall
mainly as a result of the Israeli destruction of hospitals. Provisional
solutions had to be found. One example was the `Palladium medical
station', located in a cinema building staffed by Palestinians and a
Danish nurse, poorly equipped but functioning and indeed taking its share
of the patients; or the third basement floor at La Hout medical centre
which served as a sheltered ward: or the operating theatre at the same
provisional hospital, located in the underground sound studio of this
theological school. It was equipped with two operating tables and
basic surgical and anaesthetic items.
The war destroyed the infrastructure of the town. In every street,
garbage was collected and burned, proving both the dangers of epidemic
diseases but also the very strong discipline and dignity of the
population -- and the town succeeded in keeping major epidemics away.
I wil turn to the consequences of the war of siege waged by the
Israelis against the people of West Beirut. The areas of deficiencies
in the medical field due to the siege can be summed up in six points:
1. lack of water;
2. lack of energy -- both electricity and fuel;
3. lack of different sorts of medical equipment such as instruments,
disposable materials, antibiotics, drugs, etc.;
4. lack of blood and blood products;
5. lack of adequate nutritional source for patients;
6. lack of medical staff;
To illustrate some of the important shortages, let me start with the
water. Due to the shutting of the pumping station in East Beirut, the
population of West Beirut was exposed to a number of threats: They
had to rely on improper sources of water such as wells formed in
bomb craters. These were used both for drinking water, personal hygiene
and laundry. In other areas, tanked water was distributed to a limited
extent, and in some cases, reservoirs were installed by UNICEF in the
Haret Hriek first-aid station. The lack of running water not only
hastens the development of epidemic diseases, it also makes the
medical work extremely difficult. Quite often, operations had to be
cancelled because instruments could not be properly washed between
operations. This delayed treatment. The sheets and dressings of the
patients were hard to keep clean. Wound and bone infections were
extremely common, and in some few cases we even discovered large
amounts of worms in gangrenous wounds. Infected wounds needed daily
and time-consuming attention with lancing and thorough cleaning to
have a chance to heal properly.
However, in spite of blockade and bombing, the responsible Palestinian
and Lebanese authorities organised the search for other water sources;
for example, drilling wells straight through the pavement outside
La Hout. The Israeli blockade of power supplies was long-lasting and
forced us to rely on generators delivering often marginal amounts of
energy. These machines were sensitive to both bombing and fuel
shortage. But with a permanent well and two generators outside,
medical work could still continue at La Hout as with most of the other
institutions. Paying attention to the shortages, one had to accept a
conventional light bulb even for major surgery or even a torch when
generators failed in the middle of and operation.
Lack of medical equipment was another feature of the siege, forcing us
to turn to methods of treatment inferior to modern medicine.
Complicated fractures which should have been externally fixed, had to
be plastered, often leading to disastrous results for the long-term
function of the limb. Lack of disposable materials forced the staff
to reuse items such as syringes and gloves.
Let me make one thing quite clear at this point: it may appear at this
hearing that medical services were run by foreigners during the war.
In fact, the main burdens and responsibilities were taken by our
numerous and courageous Palestinian and Lebanese health workers, many
of them being unable to be witnesses at this hearing due to work,
imprisonment or even death. It was thanks to those people that West
Beirut never was left without some medical services.
Let me conclude by summing up the main medical consequences of the
Israeli siege of West Beirut. It caused: delayed primary treatment of
injuries; often insufficient surgery; high mortality before and during
surgery; a high incidence of post-operation infections; a high
incidence of major surgical complications; malnutrition of several
patient groups; altogether an unnecessarily high mortality and
morbidity, adding to the damage already done to humans by the
military attacks themselves.
The following passages are from:
"ISRAEL'S WAR IN LEBANON: EYEWITNESS CHRONICLES OF THE INVASION & OCCUPATION",
compiled and edited by Franklin Lamb, 1984
publisher and sole distributor:
Spokesman for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation,
Bertrand Russell House, Gamble St., Nottingham, England NG7 4ET.
Transcribed with permission by John DiNardo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DR. EBBA WERGELAND, Physician, Norway
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I WAS NOT SO MUCH STRUCK BY THE BOMBARDMENT ITSELF, AS BY THE
TERRORISATION OF THE POPULATION, PALESTINIANS AND LEBANESE ALIKE.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I want to tell you about some of the things in the first period of
the blockade which I experienced. I was sent by the Palestine Committee
from Norway to Beirut on 8 June, after we had lost contact with the
PRCS there. I was already too late to leave because Beirut was already
being closed off. So from Damascus, I witnessed the beginning of the
siege which was to block supplies and entries into West Beirut,
partially or totally during two months. Hundreds of medical workers
were already waiting in Damascus when I arrived there. They were
mainly Palestinians working in the Gulf States, the majority with
their homes and families in South Lebanon. They could not enter and
they had no way of getting news about the fate of their families.
Others were stuck too. Relief organisations were getting tons of
equipment stocked in Damascus, in Chtaura on the way from Damascus to
Beirut, and in Tripoli. Three ICRC [Red Cross] convoys were stopped
on their way to West Beirut, twice by the Israelis and once by the
Phalangists. This can be checked with the Damascus ICRC representative.
Both the PRCS in Damascus and the international relief organisations
agreed that Beirut had first priority if it could be reached. Stocks
were being destroyed of blood and blood products, due to lack of
storage facilities and to expired storage time. I spent my time there
trying to find a way to get into Beirut and a Norwegian surgical team
joined me in Damascus. I give you details here because I want to show
you that the road was not open. We passed via Tripoli through the
Phalangist area pretending that we belonged to a U.N. convoy which we
knew was passing to East Beirut the same time. Because we were White,
because we were Norwegians, this worked. We had to sleep in Jounieh,
also called the Phalangist capital. It is north of Beirut on the
coast. Israeli soldiers already moved among the inhabitants there as
if it were quite normal, which reminded us of a long-standing, well-
established relationship and cooperation between the new occupants
and the Phalangists.
We passed the next day from East to West Beirut as journalists. We
brought no equipment, as other people had been turned off on their way
to West Beirut before, also due to their equipment. I had been to
Beirut four times before this visit and also during the 1978 invasion.
From the first day, I was not so much struck by the bombardment
itself as by the terrorisation of the population, Palestinians and
Lebanese alike, all classes of society affected. I met the people from
the camps as I did in 1978, in schools, in cellars, but this time it
was worse because they were never safe, even if they moved into the
centre of the city. I met people from the Palestinian refugee camps
telling me about their houses being burned down the day before;
they had lost everything. They moved from place to place trying to
find a safe area, from day to day.
I was not only a coordinator, I was also a medical doctor, but it was
not easy to give sound medical advice to people without water and
electricity or money to buy medicine. The lack of water and electricity
was not only during the periods which were announced in the newspapers
as blockades. It was more or less permanent, partially or totally,
during my whole stay there, and this was due not only to the deliberate
turning off of the tap in the East, but also to bombardment which
destroyed the pipelines; and they could not be repaired. When we
arrived it was 22 June and people had already stayed in bathrooms and
corridors, people who had their flats in the centre of town. For weeks
they started because they were scared by attacks or threatened attacks
and low overflights. It was Ramadan and the Israelis, during the first
part of our stay there, had the habit of attacking in the afternoon
when the families got together to have their first meal.
......
As to shelling and bombardment, was it indiscriminate? All the
hospitals I knew of in West Beirut except La Hout, the provisional
hospital which was made up during the war, were hit, seriously or not
so seriously. If it was not indiscriminate, then it was on purpose.
I visited quarters where I had lived before. These residential areas
were developing into ghost areas. Six storey buildings, apartment
blocks cut through like you would cut slices of bread. How many live
in Beirut? Many numbers have been mentioned, and I think no one knows
for sure. But I think many people have underestimated the number
because they did not look into every corner. They did not look in
these flats which were over-crowded with refugees from the south and
from the camps. I think it is an easy thing to under-estimate the
population of West Beirut, who lived through these times. How many died?
Again, no one can be expected to give an exact answer even though
many authorities tried to give an answer. Under the rubble in West
Beirut, there are still people left. Rescue work was extremely
difficult. When bombardments last for five hours, fourteen hours --
ambulances could not work, and rescue work was dangerous. What do you
do with fires when you have no water and fuel? There were courses
organised by the Norwegian medical team for ambulance personnel in
Beirut. A few days after we left, we received the news that of this
group of about 15 to 20, one had been killed and three wounded when
a grenade hit their ambulance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DR. CONSTANTIOS ALEXIOU, Physician, Greece
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I WAS ALSO WITNESS TO MERCILESS, SIMULTANEOUS CARPET BOMBING FROM
AIRCRAFT, ARTILLERY AND GUN BOATS. EVEN DURING THE CEASE-FIRE AGREEMENT,
THEY WERE BROUGHT IN SYSTEMATICALLY. I SAW TOTAL DEVASTATION FROM
BOMBARDMENT OF THE RESIDENTIAL DISTRICTS SUCH AS SABRA, CHATILA,
FAKHANI, MAZDA'A.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My medical team consisted of five doctors and six nurses, and Damascus
was the first stop. There, the International Red Cross policy towards
us, as expressed by those officials in Damascus, can only be termed
as strange. I refer to this because besides their negative stand
towards a well-equipped and organised team, they were equally unwilling
to hurry through large supplies of blood and the medicines offered by
Greece, and desperately needed in West Beirut. As it was impossible
for all the team to proceed to West Beirut, half of the group stayed
in Damascus and after that, turned back to Greece. The other half
travelled by taxis and arrived in East Beirut after an 11 hour trip.
For three days in East Beirut, we attempted to obtain permission to
travel into West Beirut, but it was impossible. The answer was that
Israeli forces had cut off all means of communication with West Beirut.
On the fourth day, we tried in an official way and succeeded in
passing through the blockade of Israeli and Phalange lines. I cannot
reveal, of course, the method used without exposing other people and
countries. While waiting in East Beirut, we had a continual, extensive
"bird's eye view" of bombardment by air, land and sea of the tragic
city; horrific bombardment -- quite indiscriminate.
The first hospital I went to in West Beirut was called Akka, nearly
totally destroyed. Only in its basement was there something suggesting
a first-aid station. There I operated on a crippled man, taking from
his right leg two metallic pieces. These, I think, were fragments of
a sort of cluster bomb. During that time, two ladies were admitted
seriously suffering from extensive burns due to the burning bomb
explosions. In the same place, I saw the children's department totally
damaged by shelling, while in the doctors' bedroom it was apparent
that the hole in the wall was due to a shell coming obviously from
the sea. Because it was not possible for me to work at underground
level, I left for Gaza Hospital. This was a building of six or seven
floors, but everything above the ground floor had been destroyed and
its function was limited to the first and second basement. Finally,
we went to a private gynaecological clinic. The Palestine Red Crescent
had rented the fourth floor, turning it into a general surgical unit
for emergency cases.
>From my stay and work in West Beirut, I can assess the hospital
conditions as follows. First, there was a lack of medical facilities
and supplies, and of specialised medical staff. Second, the conditions
for the care of the wounded were terribly difficult, since hospitals
had already been bombed, while the functioning of the rest became
problematic since they were unable to offer any security. Thirdly,
the lack of vital things such as electricity, water, even blood posed
significant obstacles for the care of the injured people. Fourthly,
a great number of the seriously injured could not be looked after
properly by units created in a hurry. All these factors, of course,
resulted in a high rate of mortality and a high incidence of post-
operative complications.
During my stay there, I have been witness to an absolute blockade of
the town from air, land and sea. In spite of any elementary human
rights, the Israelis and Phalangists deprived 400,000 people of water,
electricity, food supplies, making telephone communications difficult
when they had not cut them off entirely. I had already realised that
medical supplies, even blood, were significantly prevented by Israelis
and Phalangists from being sent. I was also witness to merciless
simultaneous carpet bombing from aircraft, artillery and gun boats.
Even during the cease-fire agreeent they were brought in systematically.
I saw total devastation by bombardment of the residential districts
such as Sabra, Chatila, Fakhani, Mazda'a.
The Israelis, as well, did not hesitate in bombing indiscriminately
refugee camps, hospitals and cemeteries. I must end by alluding to
the use of burning bombs [unquenchable white phosphorus], toy bombs
[designed to attract children -- to explode when manipulated],
vacuum bombs, etc. I also should tell you about the psychological war
exercised daily by false bombing with illuminations and sound bombs,
and the use of threatening leaflets. The car explosions and the
presence of snipers supplemented the atmosphere of terror and anxiety
and fear in the besieged city.
Now I will show you some indicative, characteristic slides taken by me.
A small child seriously injured when her sister was playing with an
unknown weapon, probably a toy bomb; it exploded and her sister died.
She was very seriously injured. Another child seriously injured in
its abdomen. Next one: again, young people. Next one: another one died,
[after being] very seriously injured. A baby; it was injured when it
was embraced by his mother, who had died fro | | |
