A pattern has simultaneously emerged in the tactics of those resisting the occupation. These forces are targeting the personnel of U.S. allies in Iraq including soldiers, diplomats, and businessmen. They are also doing their utmost to entice the Pentagon to use massive force, which produces growing casualties among Iraqi civilians who have nothing to do with attacks on U.S. and allied forces. These steps are politically calculated to minimize the commitment of troops to Iraq from countries other than the United States and to undermine support for Washington’s course among Iraqis.

One example of the devastating firepower increasingly used by the occupiers, and how they were lured into unleashing it by their attackers, was the November 30 battle in the majority Sunni Muslim city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

A force of 100 GIs with six tanks, four Bradley fighting vehicles, and four Humvees entered Samarra that morning to deliver new Iraqi currency issued by the U.S.-imposed regime to two banks in the city. They were accompanied by two squads of military police and four squads of infantry. The U.S. forces entered the city in two convoys and were attacked by fighters with hand and rocket-propelled grenades and rifles. The attackers persisted in firing, even after the U.S. troops began responding with machine guns and cannons.

According to many witnesses quoted in the U.S. media, the occupying troops fired indiscriminately, demolishing some buildings and damaging a mosque.

U.S. commanders said the next day that their forces suffered no fatalities, only seven wounded, and had killed 54 insurgents, many of whom were wearing uniforms of Saddam’s Fedayeen, a militia loyal to the deposed regime.

A range of Samarra residents, however, disputed this claim. Samarra General Hospital officials pointed out that only eight dead had been brought in, along with 54 wounded, most of them noncombatants, although they conceded that some of the victims may have been taken elsewhere.

According to the December 2 Washington Post, a man and his son were killed when a tank round hit the mosque near the hospital. “Even in worship, we’re not safe from the Americans,” Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Qadir, an assistant at the mosque, told the Post.

Abir Mohammed al-Khayat, 28, said a rocket hit the minibus she and others were riding in on the way home from their jobs in a local pharmaceuticals factory. “There were about 20 of us, men and women,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle. Her arm was injured by shrapnel.

“All the people in town today are asking for revenge,” Majid Fadel al-Samarai, a 50-year-old emergency room worker at the Samarra hospital, told the Chronicle. “They want to kill the Americans like they killed our civilians. Give me a gun, and I will also fight.”  
 
Pattern of attacks on U.S. allies
At the same time, the forces attacking the occupiers, and their backers internationally, have systematically targeted U.S. allies that have stationed troops and other personnel in Iraq.

Such attacks have included the November 12 suicide bombing in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, which killed 19 Italian carabinieri and at least 12 others; the November 20 bombing of the British consulate and HSBC bank in Istanbul, Turkey, that killed the British consul and 26 others, for which a unit of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility; the November 29 killings of a Colombian contractor in the town of Balad, two Japanese diplomats and their driver near Tikrit, and seven Spanish military intelligence officers ambushed south of Baghdad; and the November 30 killing of two south Korean electricians, also near Tikrit.

All of the imperialist and other governments involved have since declared their resolve to stay in Iraq or to send additional forces in the future—from Rome to Tokyo, Madrid, and Seoul.

There are indications, however, that this turn of events may delay implementation of the Japanese government’s decision to dispatch troops there. While condemning the “terrorists” who killed Japanese citizens, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, “I want to take all measures to ensure that there are no fatalities.” Some international organizations that had set up shop in Iraq—like the United Nations and Red Cross—have withdrawn or sharply scaled back their presence after earlier bombings of their installations.

Washington, meanwhile, continues to insist that its military offensive is concentrated on Hussein loyalists and that it is making progress toward smashing resistance.

“You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq, so that we don’t have to face them in our own country,” said U.S. president George Bush November 27, repeating one of the main rationalizations of his administration for the invasion and occupation of the country. Bush was addressing 600 soldiers of the 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne during a Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad which was kept secret until the last minute. “You’re defeating Saddam’s henchmen, so that the people of Iraq can live in peace and freedom,” he said. “We will win because we will stay on the offensive.”

Two weeks earlier, as the number of attacks on the occupiers rose to 50 per day, U.S. officers had launched an accelerated crackdown, focused on Baghdad and other areas of central Iraq encompassing the so-called “Sunni Triangle,” where Hussein’s Baathist Party apparatus had its main stronghold. The area includes Samarra.

In political contrast to this area, opposition to the Baathist regime flourished among the Shiites in the south, who comprise the majority among Iraqis, and Kurds in the north. Following the 1990-91 Gulf War, U.S. and allied troops stood by as the Iraqi armed forces crushed rebellions in both areas, carrying out widespread atrocities.

While southern Shiite leaders led protests against the foreign troops in the early days of the current occupation, they have not endorsed widespread military action to date.  
 
Bipartisan support
The day after Bush’s visit to Iraq, Democratic senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Jack Reed of Rhode Island visited both Baghdad and Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in northern Iraq. They had spent their Thanksgiving Day with U.S. forces in Baghram, Afghanistan.

In Iraq, Clinton offered a mild criticism of the Bush administration. At the same time, she praised Bush for his trip there to support U.S. troops in Iraq and expound once again on Washington’s goals. In an interview with the Associated Press in Baghram, she underlined the bipartisan support for the U.S.-led occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan, calling for more troops to provide “security” to the U.S.-installed government of Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

“The U.S. is resolved to stand as a strong partner” of the Karzai government, Clinton said, “and to ensure that the terrorists, whoever they are, wherever they come from, will be dealt with…. I also want to convey to them that the American people are fully behind them as they carry out a very difficult task.”

Several of those vying for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination next year made a point of praising Bush for his trip to Baghdad. One was Sen. John Kerry, who said, “I thought it was terrific. I think it’s the right think for a president to do.” Fellow Sen. Joseph Lieberman was even more complimentary. “There are days when you have to say, we’re not Republicans, we’re not Democrats,” he said. “We are Americans.”  
 
 
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