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The abrasive realities of occupation emerge ([1] below), coincident with the reported civilian death toll climbing above 2,000 (see http://www.iraqbodycount.net) and amid reports of cholera from Baghdad [2], Basra [3], and Nasiriya [4]. Hard to envision how this all will end ... === [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53306-2003Apr29.html U.S. Soldiers Kill 13 at Iraq Protest Rally, Hospital Reports Central Command Says Soldiers Were Fired On First By Edmund Blair Reuters Tuesday, April 29, 2003; 8:19 AM FALLUJA, Iraq, April 29 -- U.S. troops shot dead at least 13 Iraqis during an anti-American protest in the town of Falluja overnight, witnesses said on Tuesday, in a clash likely to inflame anger at the U.S. presence in Iraq. Witnesses and doctors in Falluja, 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Baghdad, told Reuters U.S. troops opened fire on people demonstrating against their presence at a school in the town. Falluja general hospital director Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali said 13 people had been killed and at least 75 wounded. Some local people gave higher estimates. U.S. military headquarters in Qatar acknowledged troops in Falluja had opened fire on a group of Iraqis, but said they were armed with combat rifles and had shot first. U.S. officers seeking to restore order in the volatile aftermath of Saddam's fall said 3,000 to 4,000 extra troops and military police would pour into Baghdad within the next 10 days to boost security in the capital. Major General Glenn Webster, deputy commander of U.S. land forces in Iraq, said the decision to bring in reinforcements was not related to any specific incident but the announcement followed a series of setbacks to U.S. efforts to win popular Iraqi support. With Saddam Hussein removed from power, the United States said it was pulling nearly all of its military forces out of neighbouring Saudi Arabia in a major realignment of its presence in the Gulf. The shooting in Falluja, and a clash between U.S. forces and Iraqi fighters in the northern city of Mosul on Monday in which six Iraqis were killed, punctured some of the optimism generated by a mass meeting convened by the United States in Baghdad to kickstart the transition to democracy. FALLUJA BURIES ITS DEAD "Our soul and our blood we will sacrifice to you martyrs," mourners in Falluja chanted as they buried some of the dead at a cemetery while U.S. helicopters flew overhead. "It was a peaceful demonstration. They did not have any weapons," said local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud. "They were asking the Americans to leave the school so they could use it." But a spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command in Qatar said the American troops "came upon a group of Iraqis armed with AK-47s." "The Iraqis fired on them. The troops returned fire," she said. The shooting followed a firefight in Mosul in which U.S. forces said they killed six suspected paramilitaries loyal to Saddam, whose 66th birthday was on Monday. In the heaviest fighting in the country for days, U.S. units opened fire with heavy machineguns and lit up the night sky with red flares before calling in helicopter gunships. U.S. forces announced they were holding Saddam's veteran oil minister, Amir Muhammed Rasheed, whose wife is bioweapons scientist Rihab Taha -- widely known as Dr Germ. He was number 47 on a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and the six of spades in a deck of cards issued to troops hunting former Iraqi leaders. The United States has now captured 14 of those on the list. At the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia, a senior U.S. official travelling with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on a tour of the region said Washington was ending military operations in the kingdom and removing almost all of its forces. "It was by very mutual agreement," the official said. Only some of the 5,000 U.S. personnel involved in training would remain in Saudi Arabia. The move effectively ends a relationship dating back to 1991 when the United States used Saudi Arabia as a launch pad for the last Gulf War to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait and then as a base to police a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq. TROOPS NO LONGER NEEDED "When you no longer have Southern Watch, then it's self evident that you no longer need bodies here," the U.S. official said, referring to the "no-fly" operations. The presence of Western troops in the kingdom -- home to Islam's holiest sites -- has angered many Saudis, already incensed over U.S. support for Israel. The U.S. presence was among the first grievances aired by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden to justify attacks against the United States. Washington blames bin Laden for the suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in September 2001. U.S. officers said on Tuesday the military had already moved operations of a key combat air control centre from a Saudi airbase to neighbouring Qatar. U.S. officials have declined to say if Rumsfeld intends to visit Iraq itself during his tour, which has already taken him to Qatar -- U.S. headquarters for the war -- and the United Arab Emirates. U.S. efforts to introduce democracy to Iraq following the ousting of Saddam made progress on Monday when about 250 prominent Iraqis from across the political, ethnic and religious spectrum agreed to hold a national conference in four weeks time to choose an interim government. "All efforts should be made to hold a national conference within four weeks ... to select a transitional Iraqi government," they said in a statement read out at the end of the nearly 10-hour meeting with U.S. reconstruction chief Jay Garner. U.S. troops were widely welcomed for overthrowing Saddam but many Iraqis are now anxious for them to go home. Anti-American sentiment was stoked on Saturday when an arms dump exploded in southern Baghdad, killing at least 12 civilians. Saddam's fate remain a mystery. His sons Qusay and Uday have also not been found, nor have the weapons of mass destruction which the United States said justified the war. Key former Iraqi officials in U.S. custody, including former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, say Iraq has destroyed all its biological and chemical weapons. U.S. President George W. Bush, speaking on Monday in Dearborn, Michigan, said the United States had no intention of imposing its form of government or culture on Iraq and would ensure all Iraqis had a say in the new government. "Whether you're Sunni or Shia or Kurd or Chaldean or Assyrian or Turkmen or Christian or Jew or Muslim, no matter what your faith, freedom is God's gift to every person in every nation," Bush told an audience that included a large number of Arab and Muslim immigrants to the United States. === [2] http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/23/1050777306292.html Fears capital on verge of cholera epidemic April 24 2003 While the Iraqi capital comes to terms with the end of war more than 80 per cent of the city remains in darkness after three weeks without power and running water. Doctors have now reported the first suspected cases of cholera and typhoid. Between 50 and 60 per cent of the children brought into the Al-Iskan children's hospital in Baghdad were suffering from dehydration and diarrhoea caused by bad sanitation and water, Ahmed Abdul Fattah, the hospital's assistant director said. Doctors suspected hundreds of the children had cholera and typhoid, but with no labs fully working, and most United Nations health workers having fled, hard-pressed physicians said they could only treat the cases, not confirm them. Coalition damage and confusion largely caused the power crisis, workers said - fighting snapped a fuel line to the key plant, and destroyed the central office that co-ordinates the grid. At the children's hospital, doctors were praying for their overworked cluster of generators to hold on. "Without them, these babies - 100 per cent, would face death," Dr Fattah said of premature infants in incubators. Other wards held dozens of listless children, many suffering from stomach infections caused by unclean water, draining fluids from their bodies. "An epidemic," Dr Fattah said. With clinics citywide depleted by looting, volunteers at Sunni and Shiite mosques were also treating typhoid and cholera cases out of clinics set up in mosque offices. The lights went off in Baghdad in the first week of April as bombs fell and frightened workers abandoned their posts, often staying at home to guard them against robbers. City residents had left their light switches turned on waiting for electricity to return. And for some parts of west Baghdad it happened late on Tuesday and yesterday, sending men into the street to fire AK-47s in relief. Associated Press === [3] http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer/ap.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Seeking%20Water Tuesday, April 22, 2003 · Last updated 11:16 p.m. PT Search for Water Continues in S. Iraq By TINI TRAN ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER BASRA, Iraq -- They crowd by the hundreds along the muddy banks of a sludge-colored canal, hands outstretched to fill containers with foul-smelling water gushing from a broken pipe. All day comes the parade: old men pushing carts piled high with metal tins, women carrying plastic washtubs, and children on rickety bicycles loaded with barrels. Two weeks after British forces took control of Iraq's second-largest city, water still remains out of reach for many of Basra's 1.3 million residents, forcing some to resort to desperate measures. In some cases, people take home water straight from the murky Shatt Al-Arab River. In another central neighborhood, residents used Kalashnikovs and hammers to break fist-sized holes in a drainage pipe that led from a hospital. "Of course we worry that the water is dirty, but we have no other choice," said Fadila Mahmoud, her black chador flapping in the breeze as she trudged down the dirt lane carrying two plastic jugs brimming with water. "We have had no running water since the war started." The already aging water-treatment system shut down last month after coalition air attacks knocked out power to the city. Technicians from the International Committee of the Red Cross succeeded in repairing back-up generators for the plant as a stopgap measure. But in the past week, British engineers have only been partially successful in restoring the city's electricity, because looters have continued vandalizing power substations. About 60 percent to 70 percent of the city's water system is now operational, said Andres Kreusi, head of the ICRC delegation in Basra. That still leaves tens of thousands of residents without an adequate supply of water. "The prewar situation in Iraq was far from good. You had 40 percent of the population, mostly in rural areas, who never had access to water," he said. "But the war has only aggravated this." Every day, British forces have been sending out water trucks - guarded by tanks - that fan out into Basra and nearby towns. Throngs of people swarm around them. Relief agencies have also begun sending small shipments of water across the border from Kuwait, but the demand has outstripped the supply, straining a system greatly weakened by more than a decade of sanctions. "This is a problem that is 12 years in the making. The water situation cannot be solved with just the tankers. You need to deal with the long-term infrastructure needs," Kreusi said. Hospital officials worry that the desperate consumption of dirty water could start epidemics of cholera or other diseases. So far, there have been no confirmed reports of such diseases, but doctors at Basra General Hospital say they are getting increasing numbers of patients complaining of diarrhea and gastrointestinal problems. "We have already begun seeing many cases of diarrhea and there are other symptoms that suggest cholera, but here we don't have a way to test that," said Dr. Nadeem Rahim. In the short term, for those with enough money to buy it, bottled water is now available in the market, but prices have skyrocketed - from about eight cents to $2.40 for a 1 1/2-quart bottle. With no paying jobs left in the city, most people cannot afford that, which means a daily, often frustrating, search for free water. A drive around the city quickly shows hundreds of people crouching along trash-strewn river banks, waiting for their turn. "Sometimes, you can see dead bodies of dogs in the water. But when you are desperate, what else can you do?" said Sajda Ma'atuq, 57, a former kindergarten administrator, as she stood near one makeshift watering hole. Her family of seven takes turns going in search of water. Ma'atuq has the morning shift, heading out with a giant metal washtub on her head. When she is lucky, she finds a water tanker parked alongside the dirt roads. Otherwise, she heads toward one of the broken pipes that her entire neighborhood gets water from. Jutting out of a brick wall just inches above a filthy brown river, the metal length of pipe has small holes where the water gushes out. Standing alongside her 18-year-old son, Ma'atuq hands her tub to several boys standing waist-deep in the water. "We hate doing this, but we have no choice. The war has left us like beggars," she said. === [4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2969283.stm Not a drop that's safe to drink By Jonathan Duffy BBC News Online, in Nasiriya War-ravaged Nasiriya is caught in a deadly cycle: with no electricity to pump water, locals are breaking into the underground pipes, allowing raw sewage to seep into the system. The danger of a cholera outbreak is a real one. Eight-month-old Ali Hussein is too young to know anything about the war, but he is feeling the effects now, in his stomach. For the past week, Ali has suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea, leaving him badly dehydrated. Now doctors have prescribed him a simple antibiotic and his mother, Zahra, hopes he will soon be on the mend. For Ali has been diagnosed with gastroenteritis, cases of which have risen sharply in Nasiriya in recent days. Since the third day of the war, the city's electricity supply has been out of action. The combination of bombing raids by the coalition forces and the counterattack by the Iraqi army destroyed Nasiriya's infrastructure. Without power there is nothing to pump the water. And without running water, the locals are turning to untreated supplies which they can't afford to boil because of the soaring price of fuel. The electricity shutdown has also brought the sewage pumps to a halt, so that much of this city of half a million people is sitting on a bed of stale human waste. In places it has started to seep up to ground level. Filthy pool Outside the clinic where Ali had been taken for treatment, the sewage has settled into a pool which runs the length of the dusty street before spreading out over a traffic junction. It's hard to sidestep and impossible to avoid getting a sniff of it. The big fear is the two problems will combine into a single, lethal one. Across the city, locals desperate to tap into a ready water source have split open the municipal pipes. We are in grave danger of a cholera epidemic by the summer - that will sweep through the population and kill thousands Field worker Mary McLoughlin Now sewage is seeping through the punctured holes of those pipes, so that even when the electricity is restarted, and water begins to flow freely again, it will carry potentially deadly bacteria. With temperatures rising as summer approaches, Nasiriya could find a cholera epidemic on its hands, says one highly experienced aid worker. Clean water, or the lack of it, is more of a problem than anything else in Nasiriya. There is no shortage of food. The central distribution system set up under the Oil for Food programme ensured everyone here had enough rations to last them through to August. Fatal consequences In some medical practices, 80% of patients seen are suffering from some sort of water infection. Dr Abdul Al-Shadood says his Al-Meelad clinic is seeing an average of 22 gastroenteritis cases a day, compared to one or two before the war. "If this is not diagnosed and treated quickly in children, they will die," says the doctor. That has already started to happen. The doctor refers severe cases to the city's children's hospital - itself working at only half capacity after a stray missile attack - and says the illness has claimed young lives. Another worry is the lack of medicine available to treat these relatively simple maladies. The central medicine store that used to serve all medical practices in the area was seized by the Iraqi army as a battlement and subsequently wiped out in bombing raids. Dr Shadood's clinic has run out of the most basic treatment - oral rehydration solution. Instead, he is prescribing an antibiotic called Flagyl. But he has only a few days' stock left and no deliveries are scheduled. Again there are complications. Like many western countries, Iraq's fondness for handing out simple antibiotics to treat sickness has raised resistance among many locals. Dirty water Only now are humanitarian relief agencies starting to get a handle on what help they can offer. The Irish humanitarian agency Goal arrived in Nasiriya last week and is one of only a small group of aid organisations here. Field worker Mary McLoughlin says it's "no exaggeration" that if the water and sewage situation is not mended soon, Nasiriya will see a "major humanitarian crisis". "Cholera is endemic in southern Iraq, but we are in grave danger of a cholera epidemic by the summer. That will sweep through the population and kill thousands," she says. "The water and sewage pipes were already crumbling before the war, because of years of neglect. But now people are breaking holes in them to get the water, the real danger is of cross contamination between sewage and water. "It's such a massive construction task to repair the years of neglect, I doubt whether they can fix the pipes by the time the really high temperatures come, which is when cholera becomes a real fear." _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk