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Reports From Iraq > Tue., Mar. 16, 2004
America Bombed This House
A year ago, American cruise missiles destroyed Musla Ibrahim's
house and two of his neighbors. 8 of Musla's cousins perished
in the blasts, two more were injured. |
by Aaron Glantz
DOMIZ, NORTHERN IRAQ. 25-year old Musla Ibrahim stands atop
the remains of his house. The rubble is twenty feet high in
parts with iron rods sticking out of stray cinder blocks every
which way. A year ago, American cruise missiles destroyed
this house and two of his neighbors. 8 of Musla's cousins
perished in the blasts, two more were injured.
"There was a military car with an alert system and it
stopped near the shops over there," he says pointed at
a row of nearby shops. "I thought the pilots wanted to
destroy the car but it missed and destroyed this house instead.
Why didn't the airplane hit its target? I think they wanted
to destroy the car they could have done it the first time
but the second missile also missed its target and destroyed
two more houses."
A year after an American war-planed bombed his house, a bull-dozer
clears away its remains. Today Musla Ibrahim lives two hours
away in the city of Mosul. He has no job, so he's returned
to the site of his former home to think.
"A year ago we were all together living here and spending
our free time together," he says. "Now all of the
Arab families have spread out. They live in Mosul or in the
villages. We won't ever meet together again."
But Domiz is hardly a ghost-town. The rubble of Musla Ibrahim's
old house has been bought by a Kurdish man who plans to construct
a new home. Every day it seems, a new Kurdish family occupies
an old Arab home here -- A few blocks away Myda Mossan and
her family of six move into their new four bedroom home --
bought from an Arab for $15,000 - a fraction of its value
on the open market.
The Arabs "came here under the power of the old regime
and now they're leaving," she says. "There's a process
of freedom going on. In the past this area was a Kurdish place
so they should go and leave the area."
The events playing out at Domiz are part of a pattern playing
out across Northern Iraq where Kurds are moving into areas
they historically populated before Saddam Hussein's brutal
Anfal campaign. In the late 1980s, more than 100,000 Iraqi
Kurds were lead out of their villages at gun-point, their
villages bull-dozed behind them. Cities like Domiz were built
in their place.
But history is small comfort to Musla Ibrahim.
"In the past it was better," he says shaking his
head. "It was more comfortable than now. The situation
is not stable. There are shootings and bombings and explosions.
Its not a good situation. In the past we were comfortable
and free (from danger). We could go to Mosul any time even
it was midnight, but now its not secure. Every day some people
are killed or murdered."
According to the organization Iraq Body Count (www.iraqbodycount.org)
which uses news reports to track the number of deaths due
to the US war -- between 8,400 and 10,200 civilians have been
killed in Iraq in the last year. IBC has recorded more than
300 accounts of civilian deaths.
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