Iraqis worry that as Fallujah goes, so goes the U.S. occupation
By Matthew Schofield Knight Ridder News Service
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- On television, the children are unmoving, dead in the streets, blood pooling and spreading underneath them.
On radio, announcers accuse Americans of attacking helpless civilians, not even allowing them to move for treatment of their bullet wounds.
In newspapers, the stories ask if the deaths of perhaps hundreds of innocent civilians is not a greater crime than the horrific deaths and mutilations of four Americans.
For the past week, those have been the images, sounds and words that Iraqis have been taking in as everything here has focused on Fallujah.
In this one week, Fallujah has come to symbolize for Iraqis everything that is wrong with the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
"When the four Americans were murdered, almost all Iraqis were horrified, and understood that the reaction must be strong," said Iraqi journalist Dhrgam Mohammed Ali, referring to the killing March 31 of four private security guards whose bodies were then mutilated, dragged through Fallujah and hung from a bridge. "But now, we see women and children dying, trying to escape and not being allowed to, and many stop remembering the dead Americans. Instead, they wonder why four dead Americans are worth so much, while hundreds of dead Iraqis are worth so little."