Terror reborn in Falluja ruins (reporter enters without coalition escort)

well worth the read of whole article.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1937778,00.html

Terror reborn in Falluja ruins
Hala Jaber, Falluja
Dec. 18, 2005

FIRST they made me change out of my western clothes into a flowing black burqa and slippers. Then I squeezed on to the back seat of a car packed with other women and children for the nerve-jangling journey ahead. A toddler was told to sit on my lap so I was almost hidden from view.

The driver warned me not to speak if we were stopped, in case Iraqi National Guards noticed my foreign accent. All the precautions were in place for a perilous drive past roadblocks into Falluja, the shattered Iraqi city that no western newspaper reporter has entered for more than a year without the supervision of coalition forces.



The car bumped along a dusty track across farmland and through small villages on a roundabout route to the city in Iraq’s Sunni heartland, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Eventually we were stopped at one of the checkpoints where access is restricted to residents carrying biometric identity cards. I held my breath as a guard glanced inside our car. The women beside me chatted, trying to appear unconcerned.

......Stoking the anger has been the slow pace of compensation payments, despite the allocation of $490m by Iraq’s interim government last year.

Dr Hafid al-Dulaimi, head of the city’s compensation commission, reported that 36,000 homes and 8,400 shops were destroyed in the US onslaught.

Sixty nurseries and schools and 65 mosques and other religious establishments were wrecked. Falluja’s mayor, Dhari abdel Hadi al-Irssan, claims that only 20% of the compensation promised has reached the city.

By early evening the streets of Falluja begin to empty. Only 170,000 people — half the original population — have returned. They live in difficult conditions with 4,200 American Marines and 5,000 Iraqi troops enforcing a curfew from 11pm to 6am.

our direction. :sarcasm:

..I was lucky enough to stay with a family that can afford a generator, but they still have to ration themselves. At night many people rely on oil lanterns. A dire petrol shortage compounds the frustration.

Um Ahmad’s elder son said that US and Iraqi troops were preventing residents from filling jerry cans outside Falluja and bringing them back into town — perhaps because they fear the petrol will be used for fire bombs. In some areas the stench of sewage fills the air, as grimy toddlers and barefooted children clamber over the skeletons of vehicles piled in the rubble. I discovered for myself how hard it is to keep clean when Um Ahmad offered me a pot of water that she had boiled on an ancient stove in the bathroom, to be mixed with a pot of cold water for pouring in a makeshift shower.

While the city’s residents struggle with their daily routine, new tensions are spreading. The activities of the Iraqi National Guards are heightening sectarian strains.

Sunni residents claim the National Guards routinely break into their shops and businesses at night for supposed security operations. Many complain of verbal abuse from Shi’ite soldiers. Random arrests are said to be commonplace.

accountable. Where is the international outrage...

www.brusselstribunal.org

* exclusive pictures of the urbicide in Al Qaim (Dec. 18 2005)

* Big Oil's occupation of Iraq (Dec 2005)

* Remembering Fallujah: Guernica revisited (Nov. 2005)

* White Death: US occupation forces use WMD in Iraq (Nov. 2005)

* Yosfiya: The 21st Century Nazis Are Here (Nov.20 2005)

* Report of MHRI on Human Rights violations in Iraq (Nov. 2005)

* Haditha: River Gate… to Hell (Nov. 06 2005)

* Al Qaim October Massacre: Indiscriminate Killing Zone (Nov. 05 2005)

* Iraqi Doctors Beaten and Arrested in Haditha Hospital (Oct. 30 2005)

* 10 proposals for The Future of The World Tribunal on Iraq (Oct. 20 2005)

* Dahr Jamail's report: Iraqi Hospitals ailing under occupation.

* Letter to Amnesty International on the Iraqi Constitution (English - ESP - FR - NL - IT - Deutsch) (Oct. 07 2005)

* the Salvador Option exposed

* Relevant articles about the draft of the " new Constitution" (Sept. 08 2005)

* Read the complete Downing Street Papers (PDF)