ANALYSIS

When George Bush was re-elected in late 2004, the people of Falluja must have known what was to follow.

For this city had proudly stood at centre of the so-called Sunni triangle of resistance to America’s illegal invasion of Iraq.

So, some 15, 000 American soldiers stormed Falluja, they were there to take on some 1,000 fighters. If the numbers were not unequal enough, the invaders – some observers did remember Saddam Hussein’s words that the invaders were ‘the mongols of our age’ – were also armed with the latest high tech weaponry, that included white phosphorous.

Russia Today has been broadcasting a documentary which looks at the alleged outcome of using this weapon whose use like any weapon of mass destruction is illegal.

Children have been born, it is claimed, with deformities, the problem being so severe that women have been advised to forget about having babies.

We have been here before of course, after the Gulf War, Depleted Uranium was being blamed for birth deformities. Then, there was also cluster bombs that children thought were toys, and of course the sanctions which killed half a million children, a price that Madeline Albright, then the Secretary of State, thought was worth it.

One UN official actually resigned because he believed that what was going on was the systematic destruction of a people.

And yet depsite all this, the amazing thing about Iraqis, as this documentary shows, is how they appear to show little or no malice towards their tormentors.

In fact, one begins to understand what the word ‘humanity’ really means when hears an Iraqi speak.