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Reports From Iraq > Thu., Mar. 18, 2004
From the Wreckage of the Lebanon Hotel
American soldiers guard the rubble of what was the Lebanon
Hotel. Many survivors of the blast blame the United States
for the blast. |
BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- Ambulances rush to the scene as American
troops pull bodies from the rubble of the Lebanon Hotel. One
soldier on top of a tank points his machine gun at me and
screams no reporters. At least twenty people are dead. Most
of them Iraqi.
Survivors gather a block away.
“We put the responsibility for this on the American
troops,” Carpenter Mohammed Qassim Ali screams into
my microphone. “They want to make a lot of bombs so
they’ll stay longer. This is something we don’t
want. We want them to go back to America. We will serve and
protect Iraq. We want them to leave.”
A day after the wreckage of the Lebanon Hotel is surrounded
by American tanks and armored personnel carriers -- one of
which, equipped with a bulldozer, is clearing debris away
from the 20 foot crater left by the bomb. US military patrols
on the streets of Baghdad are up today -- and the White House
has pledged a stepped up effort to find resistance fighters.
In Washington, speaking minutes after the blast, George Bush's
spokesman Scott McClellan blamed foreign terrorists pledged
to stay “on the offensive” in what he called the
war on terror.
But the US military doesn't always kill the right man. Take
the case of Mohammed Awad Jobur.
“At 12:30 in the afternoon the American troops came
to a school near our house asking the guard of the school
to open the door,” he recalls. “The guard of the
school didn’t answer so they just turned and opened
fire on my home. They killed my mother and my son lost his
leg.”
Mohammed Awad Jobur lives in the predominately Shi'ite Baghdad
neighborhood al-Thourya where there have been no attacks on
American troops. He says he should be exactly the type of
person to favor the American Army -- since he served for 23
years in Saddam's feared Abu-Grahb prison, but that's not
his situation.
“The American soldiers treat us worse than animals,”
he says. “Even animals have more rights than use.”
Mohammed Awad Jobur says the American military came to his
home later and admitted they made a mistake. They told him
they would pay him $3,000 in compensation but the money hasn't
come.
“Yesterday’s bombing was terrorism and I can’t
support it,” he says. “But I want you to know
that I hate the Americans now. They won’t even compensate
me for the loss of my house and my family. I need money. So
maybe if someone comes to me and offers me money to kill the
American troops I will think about it. I don’t think
I would do it but I’d think about it.”
In the meantime, the number of attacks on Americans continues
to rise. Since the bombing of the Lebanon Hotel, at least
two more American soldiers have been shot and killed. In Northeastern
Iraq, 3 journalists working for a US government-run TV station
were also shot dead. Amidst the wreckage of the Lebanon hotel
an old name comes to the surface.
“We wish we had Saddam Hussein,” one man says
pointing at a giant hole blown through his apartment. “Only
he can heal the Iraqi people.”
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