From Granma International

THE people of Falluja dig amongst the rubble of their homes, destroyed by the aerial bombardments and artillery attacks of the United States. They are searching for their dead. Meanwhile, the Marines are practicing urban warfare in order to launch an assault that will lead to their victory over the insurgent city. The omens are clear. October has been one of most bloody months for the occupation forces, the number of casualties is now in excess of 1,121. On Saturday, October 30 alone, an attack by an Iraqi combatant who blew up his car alongside a convoy of Marines cost them eight lives.

Just hours before, the results of a study by British medical journal The Lancet were published: 100,000 Iraqis have died since the Anglo-U.S. coalition initiated its war on Iraq. The total to have emerged from the research, undertaken by the John Hopkins University, is much higher than any previous calculation and certain individuals immediately jumped in to deny it. But why not admit a ratio of one to 100 when the United States has unleashed its entire arsenal on the civilian population - especially in the capital Baghdad and a dozen other important cities - whilst the regular army of that Mesopotamian country barely presented any resistance?

Afterwards, the fighting continued and at the present juncture, what is the difference for Falluya, bombed on a daily basis, in relation to March/April 2003?

The authors of the Lancet report derived their estimate from the number of Iraqis who died over a 14-month period prior to the invasion and then carried out surveys of how many died in the same period after the invasion and subtracted the difference. Of course, the 'extra' deaths in the period following the invasion can only be attributed to the war.

And there are the troops, prepared to increase that figure; nevertheless the curve of U.S. troop casualties will also increase and it is directly proportional to the spiral of a resistance that is out of their control.

The preparations to destroy Falluya and convert it into a new Guernica, rest on the futile expectation that this will eliminate that central nerve of the resistance and that they can subsequently 'pacify' Iraq in time for next January’s planned elections.

On October 30 they essayed a ground operation in the southeastern region of the city, in which the Marines opened fire over a three-hour period to gain a measure of their opponents. They have now seen the result. However, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Ramos, a battalion commander in the area, has assured that the next action 'will be more complex, more dangerous and will last a lot longer (¼ ) We don’t know when it will come, but we know that it will be soon¼ Rest Marines, and be ready for the battle,' he told his staff officers on Saturday.

Of course, the George W. Bush administration is justifying the genocidal plan by the alleged and much-touted presence in Falluja of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the Jordanian who it believes to be Al-Qaeda’s main man in Iraq and to whom they attribute any kidnapping or attack that occurs in the land bathed by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Supposing that Zarqawi is the man leading the resistance, they should take into account one earlier and quite recent experience: neither the overthrow nor the defeat of Saddam Hussein has halted the resistance.

But October left another surprise. The Allawi puppet government reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency that almost 400 tons of highly dangerous explosive – a quantity that could cause as much damage as a nuclear projectile – had gone missing from the old warehouse at al Qaqaa. That provoked in an explosion, not of the charge but of a scandal.

A few days before Bush launched the invasion in March 2003, the IAEA checked that the sealing of the installation by its inspectors in 1991 was still intact. Thus everything subsequently was in the hands of the U.S. occupation forces.

As one would suppose, the issue came to be part of the final shots in the U.S. presidential campaign. John Kerry condemned the negligence and blamed Bush (son) as the one responsible given his position as maximum commander of the U.S. forces. The current leader’s specialized propaganda machine did not hesitate to present an explanation, through a statement from John A. Shaw, deputy defense secretary for international technological security. The adventure and spy movie plot published in the ultra-right Washington Times is as follows: Shaw 'believes' that Russian Special Forces working for Iraqi intelligence, 'almost certainly' seized the explosives and took them out of Iraq – to Syria or Iran – just before Bush invaded¼

With this mentally unbalanced team leading the empire, one would have to ask George W. Bush: 'and you’re still saying that the United States and the world are much safer now than when you invaded Iraq?'



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