Kuwait Diary

Kuwait Diary -- March 22 nd, 2003.

Day 3 of the 2'nd gulf war.
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Today, as always, the war was a mixed bag.

Operation ‘Shock and awe’ continued its relentless bombardment of Baghdad through the night. It was an amazing spectacle as a thousand tomahawk and cruise missiles smashed into buildings in Baghdad, through a barage of anti aircraft fire, throwing up purple mushroom clouds into the night sky. The hits were highly targetted toward official buildings. However, the hospitals reported 250 civilians seriously injured and three dead when the first news started coming in. Overall, we have become so insensitized, that these civilian casualties were reported as ‘very marginal’ and acceptable. Colateral damage was minimal.

In Kuwait, Al Samoud missiles continued to whistle overhead, heading mostly toward the American army sites, Kuwait's oil fields and the Ali Al Salem airbase. Patriot missiles fired to intercept the missiles were successful in destroying them, but falling debris lead to some casualties of guest workers. No chemical or biological agents had been detected in any of the missiles fired by Iraq into Kuwait. I decided that I was not going to take unnecessary risks and stayed away from work as did most other citizens in Kuwait. The government has announced a further week of holidays for female staff. Schools have closed for an early spring vacation.

The Australian warship on which Prime minister Howard has sent 2000 troops caught an Iraqi tugboat trying to lay sea mines on the gulf. On the open desert near the frontline, wealthy Kuwaitis threw parties and danced with joy, as US troops advanced towards Baghdad.

Thirty of the hundred oil wells in Southern Kuwait had been set on fire by the Iraqis. 22 firefighters from Kuwait's oil industry, are being escorted to these oil field to stop the fire. They have estimated that it will take around 45 days to bring the fires under control.

Innocents too close to war can get caught in the cross fire. For the first time journalists covering the war were killed in the line of duty. Three journalists working for British television company ITN were feared dead after coming under fire near Basra while an Australian journalist was killed in a car bombing in northern Iraq that Kurdish officials blamed on a militant group. The three ITN journalists were found shot dead in Umm Qasr, apparently victims of Iraqi sniper fire.
Today, CNN, Fox news and Sky News were asked to leave Iraq while BBC and Al Jazeera were allowed to stay on.

War is not pretty, not by any stretch of imagination and today images of horror began to become available. A photograph showing two headless Iraqi soldiers in a trench, beside them a white flag apparently waved in vain, was used in several British newspapers to illustrate the horrors of war. The bodies were discovered by allied troops following an assault in the strategic Fao Peninsula in southern Iraq on Saturday. "For these Iraqi soldiers, their attempt to lay down their weapons came all too late," said the Sunday Mirror. "After the TV war ... the reality of war," said the headline over the picture.

The pressures of war on the human mind can be immense. Not everyone can handle such pressures even after years of training, when finally confronted by the realities of war. Unfortunately, a US marine cracked up in Kuwait today. There were 13 casualties, all members of the elite 101st Airborne Division, with one dead and others seriously injured, when the unidentified soldier hurled an undetermined number of grenades into a heavily guarded US military camp in the northern Kuwait desert. CNN reported that the man had recently been disciplined for "insubordination issues," but it was not clear whether the disciplinary actions were connected with the attack. He has been arrested. The attack occurred at Camp Pennsylvania, one of the sprawling US military outposts in the Kuwait desert near the Iraqi border, which is under intense round-the-clock security. More than 1,000 vehicles from the division, nicknamed the "Screaming Eagles," had massed in northern Kuwait near the Iraqi border.

With such dense air traffic over the northern Kuwait airspace, a British RAF Tornado GR4 plane returning after an assignment in Irag was shot down in error by a US Patriot missile. This is in addition to three helicopters which have crashed due to mid air collisions. Not only are there traffic jams on the open desert, there are traffic jams in the skies over Kuwait too.

A heavy firefight broke out between the US marines and Iraqi forces in the southern Iraqi town of Umm Qasr, one day after US officials said they had won control of the strategic port. Reuters correspondent Adrian Croft said the US soldiers opened up with heavy bursts of machine-gun fire in an area where US forces had set up a headquarters in the town. "There's a serious firefight going on here now," said Croft. "There is a hell of a lot of machine-gun fire going on." Arabic television al-Jazeera's correspondent in Umm Qasr said the gunfire, which could be heard in the background, had been going on for about 15 minutes. He said Iraqis appeared to be staging "a counter attack" in the port city. That was definitely not expected.

The battle came one day after the US military officials reporting seizing control of Umm Qasr, despite pockets of resistance in residential areas of the town. The marines said on Saturday that US and British forces had taken between 400 and 450 Iraqi prisoners in fighting around Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port, and the nearby Faw Peninsula which controls access from the Gulf to Iraq's tiny coast. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had said in Washington on Friday that US and British forces had already captured Umm Qasr. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf on Saturday dismissed Rumsfeld's statement as "illusions and lies". Croft said the port was quiet after nightfall after some bursts of artillery fire in the afternoon. Marines put on gas masks during a brief alert on Saturday afternoon. US-led forces say they need the port to send humanitarian aid to show ordinary Iraqis that Washington and London are serious about helping rebuild Iraq after their planned overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. Military experts say the port might also help to re-supply US-led forces if the war drags on. Clearly, the easy surrender which was being expected is not happening. And, as helicopter gunships join the fray, civilian casualties will rise.

The economic realities of this war were revealed further as the ‘contracts’ issue surfaced again today. Who will rebuild Iraq after it has been blown to bits by thousands of American bombs? The New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert, had this to say.
‘‘Do most Americans understand that even as we are launching one of the most devastating air assaults in the history of warfare, private companies are lining up to reap the riches of rebuilding the very structures we’re in the process of destroying? Companies like Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Bechtel Group understand this conflict a heck of a lot better than most of the men and women who will fight and die in it, or the armchair patriots who’ll be watching on CNN and cheering them on. Its not unpatriotic to say that there are billions of dollars to be made in Iraq and that the gold rush is already under way. It’s simply a matter of fact.’’ When you remember that Vice President Dick Cheney used to be chief executive of Halliburton it makes the Bush administration’s zeal to ‘‘bring freedom’’ to the Iraqi people less than credible.

Around the world today.

Tens of thousands of people marched in cities around the world demanding an immediate end to the war in Iraq. The biggest protests were in Europe, with dozens of demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and other countries. While in the Middle East, protests continued for a second day after violent anti-American clashes the day before, mainly involving students in small demonstrations. In Manama, Bahrain, more than 100 people demonstrated in front of the British embassy during the late afternoon - and later, protesters set up rubbish bins on fire and thrown stones at riot police. Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. In Paris, thousands of protesters chanted "Bush, Murderer" while in the Italian capital, Rome, protesters peacefully marched through the centre of the city. Children and adults wore rainbow coloured peace flags and some protesters held petrol-pump handles in their hands in sign of protest against American oil companies. In Brussels, several protesters hurled rocks and sticks at the U.S. embassy as more than 10,000 people protested the start of the US-led war against Iraq. Riot police used water canons to disperse a group of protesters in front of the embassy in Brussels -- and a small group of men threw rocks at nearby buildings. Meanwhile, in Germany a group called Resist organised a small anti-war protest in Alexander Place in central Berlin. In London protesters met in Hyde Park. The turnout was well down from last month's mass rally, which drew at least 7,50,000 people, with police estimating turnout on Saturday at less than 1,00,000 while organizers claimed 1,50,000. Throughout Australia, people protested their country's involvement in the war on Iraq. Several speakers addressed the crowds, including political leaders, peace organisers, an Iraqi refugee and musicians -- all calling for Australian troops to be brought home from the Middle East.

In Taipei, hundreds of opponents of the war tried to hand over a black coffin representing war victims the US representative office. In Gaza City, thousands of Palestinians filled the streets to participate in a peaceful pro-Iraqi rally. The demonstrators waved Iraqi flags as well as the green flags of the Hamas militant group and the black flag of the Islamic Jihad movement. And in Moscow, about two thousand activists of the Idushchie Vmeste (Russian for "Walking Together") youth group brought an oil can each to the official residence of the US ambassador to Moscow. The group, which won notoriety in the past by its extravagant actions against avant-garde Russian authors and communists, has taken on the United States over its war in Iraq. Commentators suggested that such protests across the world would have little political impact.

It is the view of this author that outside of a small number of Arab states which are strong US allies, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, the opinion across rest of the Arab world seems to be hardening, with a potential to make Palestine look like ‘chicken s***’. With its military might, there is no doubt that the US lead coalition will be sucessful and victorious. More dangerous will be the aftermath, when the security shields are withdrawn. The real and human costs will then come home to roost. Whose cost?… is the million dollar question.