April 12, 2004 | Democracy Now!
The town of Fallujah is under siege and there are reports of a massacre of Iraqis at the hands U.S. troops. The death toll in the town has now topped 600 with over 1,000 injured.
Local hospitals reported the majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly. The U.S. maintains 95 percent of those killed were members of the resistance. This according to the Guardian of London.
More than 60,000 women and children fled the city during a brief ceasefire on Friday but the US blocked any men of military age from leaving. Dozens of bodies have been buried in the city’s soccer stadium after US forces blocked roads heading toward the cemetery.
The attack on Fallujah has galvanized major portions of the Iraqi population against the U.S. Middle East analyst and University of Michigan professor Juan Cole writes “There is a danger that the vindictive attitude of the Americans … will push the whole country to hate them. A hated occupier is powerless even with all the firepower in the world.”
To read the full transcript of the interview with Aaron Glantz of Free Speech Radio News (in Iraq), or to listen to the interview, click here.
