Fallujah civilians endangered by British Army
There has been much debate this week about the possibility of British soldiers being redeployed to Baghdad, in order to allow U.S. troops to mount an offensive on Fallujah. The debate centres around the safety of the British soldiers, since they would clearly become targets for the Iraqi resistance fighters. Much has been made of the fact that these soldiers will be more likely to be attacked in Baghdad than in their normal area of operations around Basra. Politicians are lining up to criticise any moves to put British soldiers in more danger, talkshow phone lines are buzzing with people who are against the idea of further endangering British troops, and all the while the government insists that "no decision has been made".
Some more cynical observers note that the government also said that no decision had been made to invade Iraq shortly before invading it, yet the information that we now see says that this decision had already been made a year previously.
There is no debate in Britain about the danger posed to ordinary, innocent Iraqi civilians in this exercise in collective punishment. British soldiers who go into dangerous areas have weapons, body armour, helmets, and armoured vehicles to protect themselves.
Ordinary Iraqis have none of these. The Iraqi government is not only doing nothing to protect them, it is actually implicated in this plan. The last Iraqi government to impose collective punishment on towns where there were dissidents was the government of Saddam Hussein. The new Iraqi government is following the same path.
One thing that is certain is that if British soldiers do move to Baghdad, it will be ordinary people in Fallujah that will be put in the most danger.
