MERGED: Will there be cheering...? + YES! there is cheering... + Iraqi town liberated

[ALEXRUS]

With every day of occupation there will be less and less cheering and more anger...

 

[nbcrusader]

From the average Iraqi?? Or will we just infer this from the blood letting that makes the headlines.....

 

[deep]

here is an average Iraqi family

a grandma

a mother (8 months pregnant)

a dad

some kids

THE WORLD



U.S. Soldiers Fire on Iraqi Family; 4 Die

There was no warning, a survivor says. Military states that the incident is under investigation.

By Chris Kraul
Times Staff Writer

August 12, 2003

BAGHDAD ? The Kawaz family had just dropped off Grandmother and were heading home in their small white car, well in advance of the city's 11 p.m. curfew. No one saw that U.S. soldiers had set up a checkpoint at the intersection ahead.

As their car rolled toward the checkpoint, a hail of bullets from U.S. soldiers ripped through their vehicle, killing Adel Kawaz, 44, and three of his children, ages 18, 16 and 8. His wife, Anwaar, survived, as did the couple's 13-year-old daughter.

Although major combat operations may be over in Iraq, the Kawaz family's experience illustrates anew the danger civilians face under the U.S.-led military occupation. With resistance forces attacking troops daily ? another U.S. soldier died Sunday in a blast in Baqubah ? soldiers are on high alert. In this tense and broiling-hot capital patrolled by some 36,000 U.S. troops, trigger fingers are at the ready.

The shooting of the Kawaz family happened about 9:15 p.m. Friday. The Army has not released details. Acknowledging that a family had been hit by U.S. gunfire, as first reported by Associated Press, a military spokesman said Monday that the incident was under investigation.

U.S. officials also said they were looking into the apparent shooting of two Iraqi policemen by U.S. soldiers Saturday. The plainclothes officers were in a speeding car pursuing crime suspects when they were fired on.

In an interview Monday, the surviving Kawaz daughter, Hadeel, said the soldiers who fired on her family car gave no warning. There had been an explosion in the neighborhood that night, possibly from a faulty electricity transformer or generator. The family, concerned that the blast would attract U.S. soldiers, decided to return home early. But unknown to them, U.S. soldiers had set up a checkpoint about half a mile from the grandmother's house in the Slaykh section of the capital.

After the firing on their car stopped, Hadeel said, her father and 8-year-old sister, Marvet, lay in the car for an hour without receiving medical attention. Soldiers eventually removed them from the vehicle, and they died at a hospital. Her brother Haider, 18, and older sister, Oulah, 16, died at the scene.

Hadeel calmly explained how before the tragedy, she had taken a liking to the Americans. She and her siblings would interrupt their video games to give the GIs water when they patrolled in the heat near their house.

"And now this happens to us," said Hadeel, who escaped with scalp and arm wounds from flying glass.

Her father, a former member of the Iraqi air force, had just received a $60 check, which the U.S. government issued to ex-Iraqi servicemen. He planned to put it toward opening a satellite TV dish shop; until then, he was driving a taxi.

After the firing began, Hadeel's mother, who is eight months pregnant, screamed for the soldiers to stop, apparently to no avail.

Hadeel's uncle, Jamal Khathem, said that the killings were God's will and that his sister-in-law has no intention of seeking restitution from the Americans. Still, it has surprised him that no one from the U.S. government has come to their house to investigate, check on Hadeel's condition or offer an apology.

A coalition spokesman said Monday that it was up to victims to apply for restitution after alleged wrongful-death incidents, as well as to provide proof, including photos of the scene and victims.

But Khathem said nothing could make up for what occurred.

"What has happened, happened. What could they offer us that would bring our family back to life?" he asked.

Although she expressed similar fatalism about losing her three siblings and father, Hadeel said she could not understand how an army from a nation with so much sophisticated military equipment could not have seen "there were girls and a family in the car that night."

"It is tragic," she said, "that their famous technology failed them."

 

[Scarletwine]

I would say that average Iraqi's are getting upset if the Governing Council is warning the US.

http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030811181403.744e5y1y.html

"The president of Iraq's 25-man interim Governing Council demanded Monday the US-led coalition forces treat Iraqis better, amid allegations of civilians being struck down by American troops during aggressive raids.
"We have insisted on several occasions to the coalition forces on the necessity of treating Iraqis properly," Ibrahim Jafari, the council's first president in a nine-man rotation, told reporters."

 

[Rono]

From the average Iraqi?? Or will we just infer this from the blood letting that makes the headlines.....

The average Iraqi needs food, drinkingwater, medicine and work. When it takes to long for providing this to the "average " Iraqi, there will be a lot of anger and diseapointment. How would you feel when the oil is flowing faster than water?

And with the brutal raids from coalition forces the anger will grow.

 

[Scarletwine]

I was just watching a special on C-Span about USAID tour of Iraq. They were at a Basra Pediatric hospital, sporatic electricity, no air conditioning and very little or no medicine.
My son weighed 2lbs. 6 oz. at birth {29 weeks), without medicine and electricity he would not be the vibrant, athletic 12 year old he has become. I felt so much for the people including the doctors. The death toll will continue to rise, but many won't be counted.

 

[Dreadsox]

[Q]The power crisis has several causes. Gasoline and other fuels are short because smugglers have taken shipments out of the country, and because the region's major refinery failed last week after all four electricity lines supplying it were cut by saboteurs. All four of the refinery's aging backup generators also failed.

Power is short because one of two major power stations in Basra failed, and because demand has surged with the unusually high temperatures. The gasoline and power shortages are linked, because most businesses in Iraq rely on gasoline-powered generators to supplement electricity from the grid.

Part of the problem is that Saddam Hussein's government left the entire power network in a seriously decayed condition, Mr. Pickard said. But he also expressed some frustration with American authorities for not moving faster to improve the situation.[/Q]

It is easy to point the finger at the US for not doing enough. However, in the South we are seeing problems and the warfare continues. Sabotage of the electrical lines, and failing generators. Much of the south was decimated by Saddam because he wante to keep Bagdahd and Tikrit happy, so it is not surprising the equiptement in the South is failing as well.http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/13/international/worldspecial/13CND-BASR.html?hp