U.S. Says Aid Convoy Can't Go Into Falluja Today

[maddezmom]

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi Red Crescent aid convoy waiting at the edge of Falluja will not be allowed to enter the city center on Sunday, a U.S. Marine officer said.

"They will not be allowed to cross the bridge today," Captain Adam Collier told Reuters at Falluja hospital, where the convoy is waiting to cross the Euphrates river into the main part of the embattled Iraqi city. He cited security reasons.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041114/ts_nm/iraq_convoy_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480

SECURITY REASONS....thought it was undercontrol. What does the US military need to do more mop up? This is sickening, where the hell is the World?? :mad:

[jjanpundt]

1. I guess they don't want any independent reports leaking

out about the real situation there. Either they have to do some major disposal of dead civilians or they don't have control of the city and aid workers would be at risk. Personally, I'm leaning toward the theory that they've killed 100s if not 1000s of civilians and need to do major clean up.

[dbt]

2. A very SHORT story there. Where's the in-depth?

Of Journalism's Five W's, we get the Who, What, When and Where, but we don't get the Why. Hell, we haven't been getting the Why since roughly the time of bu$h's nomination.

:freak:
dbt

[maddezmom]

4. it's been updated

To enter the city proper, the convoy will have to pass over one of two bridges spanning the Euphrates. U.S. forces have said that those bridges remain unsafe, even though the military has said it has taken almost full control of Falluja.


"We don't know when the bridge will be open for civilian traffic," Collier said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``

:(

[dbt]

6. Ask and ye shall receive, I s'pose.

But it's difficult to imagine that the military isn't crossing the bridge at will.

:freak:
dbt

[maddezmom]

8. agree...and if nothing else

couldn't the US military or Iraqi Army take the supplies to the Hospital???

[sattahipdeep]

10. They are in the general hospital

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/53B29CD6-0514-47D5-B776-97B5507CBC37.htm

[Missy M]

3. Moral values?

This coming from an administration supposedly elected because of their moral values then I am happy to be considered immoral. To not let humanitarian aid into the region is heartless.

[teach1st]

5. Have we at least turned the water back on?

Anybody know?

[sattahipdeep]

9. Water-pumping operations have now stopped for good

"Water-pumping operations have now stopped for good.
Water pipes carry polluted water supply.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/53B29CD6-0514-47D5-B776-97B5507CBC37.htm

[teach1st]

12. Thanks. The Geneva Convention...

...which has become "quaint":

http://www.genevaconventions.org /

Art. 54. Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population

2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.

[UpInArms]

13. *Co's AG appointee, Gonzales

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=243266

excerpt:

Gonzales drew criticism after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks when he wrote a memo in which Bush claimed the right to waive anti-torture law and international treaties providing protections to prisoners of war. That position drew fire from human rights groups, who said it helped lead to the type of abuses uncovered in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Specifically, Gonzales' memo said the Geneva Convention that had long governed the treatment of prisoners did not apply to al-Qaida or the war in Afghanistan. The memo called some of the Geneva Convention's provisions "quaint."

Gonzales also defended the administration's policy essentially repudiated by the Supreme Court and now being fought out in lower courts of detaining certain terrorism suspects for extended periods without access to lawyers or courts.

...more...

[GreenArrow]

29. what good is water service

when there's no one left to use it.

[sattahipdeep]

7. Witness contradicts denials

Local journalist in Falluja, Haza al-Afify, told
Aljazeera that there were many civilian casualties,
contrary to what the US military said.

"The US forces denial is something but the realities on the ground
are another. The US tanks and aircraft keep bombarding residents'
homes day and night.

"The US snipers keep dominating rooftops and target everything that
moves on the ground. This is mass murder for Falluja residents," the
journalist said.

"There are scores of families buried under the rubble of destroyed
homes. Others have bled to death. There is a stench from
every street due to decaying bodies."

"So how can I believe the US forces' allegations on what I have
witnessed by my own eyes?"

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/53B29CD6-0514-47D5-B776-97B5507CBC37.htm

[0007]

11. Christians don't act this way!

junior and his gang of thugs with help from the media will lie and lie and lie right through this debacle.

These are more war crimes that are being committed.

[Politicub]

24. Christians do indeeds act this way

If there is a hell, it will burn hottest for the false prophets.

[sattahipdeep]

27. The Blood trail of the USA

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/041114/photos_ts/mdf756071&e=12

[sattahipdeep]

14. blackwatersecurity

US snipers keep dominating rooftops and target everything that moves on the ground.

[billyoc]

15. It will be less than a week

until everyone in Fallujah dies of thirst.

Worse. Than. Rwanda. :grr:

[Roland99]

16. Voted a '5'

[UpInArms]

17. related article: US troops tackle last rebel redoubt in Fallujah

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1243201.htm

excerpt:

But a Reuters reporter with the Red Crescent convoy at Fallujah's main hospital by the Euphrates river on the western edge of the city said explosions had been sending up plumes of smoke in central and southern areas since 6:00am (local time).

Some 10,000 US and 2,000 Iraqi troops began blasting their way into Fallujah last Monday and a senior Iraqi official said more than 1,000 had been killed in the offensive. The US military says 22 American and 5 Iraqi troops have also died.

Seven Red Crescent trucks and ambulances reached the hospital on Saturday, but have yet to cross the Euphrates into the main part of the city, where thousands of civilians have been trapped by fighting for the past six days.

"Our situation is very hard," said one resident contacted by telephone in the central Hay al-Dubat neighbourhood.

"We don't have food or water. My seven children all have severe diarrhoea.

"One of my sons was wounded by shrapnel last night and he's bleeding, but I can't do anything to help him."

...more...

[maddezmom]

18. Reuters: Falluja Residents Desperate for Food, Water, Aid

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - No food. No water. No help. As fierce fighting casts a pall of smoke over the rubble-strewn Iraqi city of Falluja, thousands of Iraqi families remain cut off from desperately needed supplies.

Seven Red Crescent trucks and ambulances have reached the main hospital on the western outskirts, but it is still too dangerous for them to cross the Euphrates river to bring help to locals, including hundreds of children, cut off for six days.


"Our situation is very hard," said one resident contacted by telephone in the central Hay al-Dubat neighborhood on Sunday.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041114/ts_nm/iraq_falluja_scene_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480

[maddezmom]

19. another Rueters: Falluja Fighting Delays Aid to Iraq Civilians

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041114/ts_nm/iraq_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480

[dbt]

20. Goddammit, the bridge is unsafe exactly HOW?

"Security reasons," my shiny metal ass! If the bridge that the aid convoy wants to use is structurally unsound, you can bet that "our" military has a way to get as many vehicles as it wants across the river--whenever it wants to do so.

If we are "in control" of Falluja, we can damn well provide that convoy with an escort to anywhere in Falluja that it wishes to go.

I ain't had enough koolaid to believe that the insurgents would fire on an aid convoy, either. Everything about this operation smells like a catfish farm in August.

More from the latest Reuters piece referenced just above:

Abu Mustafa said he knew of six families nearby in a similar plight, before breaking down in tears. "We are still fasting, though it is the Eid (end of Ramadan feast) today. Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar (God is great)," he sobbed.

Most Muslims believe it is forbidden to fast on Eid al-Fitr, which follows the month-long fasting month of Ramadan.

We are sure as hell acting like the Great Satan that the Ayatollahs in Iran railed against!

:grr:
dbt
(I live in a Rogue Nation and it SUCKS!)

[VolcanoJen]

21. Kick... any updates?

This development is sickening.

[maddezmom]

23. lastest: U.S. Troops Hunt Falluja Rebels, Keep Aid Out

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces hunted rebels in the devastated Iraqi city of Falluja on Sunday as fighting subsided after a ferocious six-day-old assault.


No help has reached civilians since the offensive began on Monday and U.S. forces kept an Iraqi Red Crescent aid convoy of seven trucks and ambulances waiting at the main hospital near a bridge over the Euphrates River on the edge of Falluja.


`snip~

A Reuters correspondent who drove through the city saw utter destruction. Bodies lay in the streets. Homes were smashed, mosques ruined, and power and telephone lines hung uselessly.


Shupp said the Red Crescent did not need to deliver aid to civilians in Falluja and questioned whether there were any.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041114/ts_nm/iraq_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480

[Politicub]

22. They don't want a picture of the mass grave

How many thousands Iraqis have lost their lives in Falluja over the past week. This is genocide, folks. Some can try to use the fig leaf of war to cover these atrocities, but there is no difference between mass killing of Iraqis vs. mass killing of Muslims in Kosovo.

It sickens me.

[maddezmom]

25. AFP : Iraqi Red Crescent presses US troops for full access to Fallujah

"They are still in the hospital and they are tring to have the facility to distribute material in Fallujah but until now they have not been able to," said Ahmed Nasser, the head of the Red Crescent's disaster management unit.


"They insist that they will stay there until (they are granted permission)," Nasser told AFP. "We hope that we can do this job."


The military was unavailable for immediate comment on the situation, but a spokesman said in an email on Saturday that he was unsure whether the convoy would be allowed to enter further, amid the inherent dangers.


Major Francis Piccoli, another military spokesman, said earlier on Sunday that humanitarian assistance was being provided "in the secured areas."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1515&ncid=1515&e=12&u=/afp/20041114/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_us_fallujah_aid_041114164823

[VegasWolf]

26. All those with serious wounds, suck it up, we're bringing you

democracy, get grateful.

[sattahipdeep]

28. US soldiers 'beat hospital staff

"The troops dragged patients from their beds and pushed them towards
the wall. There were 17 injured people among the patients," al-Muhannadi said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A800AA57-C2A4-47FB-9BB5-6D6E1B9C3C22.htm

[DeadManInc]

30. Falluja

How sickening! How does Bush sleep at night.