CharlieF
03-28-2003, 01:41 PM
"UK/USA, It Means to Me: United to Kill US All"
Live From Baghdad, What You Won’t Hear on the Networks: An Ordinary Iraqi Speaks Out
Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent: We’re joined on the phone by Gazwan Al Muktar, a retired engineer and ordinary resident of Baghdad , something that you almost never hear on the US networks. Gazwan, we’re hearing reports that a Baghdad marketplace has been bombed. As many as forty plus people being killed--again, the reports are just coming in--as well about Iraqi TV being hit. What are you hearing in Baghdad right now, Gazwan Al Muktar?
Gazwan Al Muktar: Jeremy, we have been,--since the morning-- continuously bombarded since last night. We are being threatened this night with the severest bombardment since the start of the war. They have attacked the television station and the Iraqi Satellite Channel, which has resulted in the deaths of so many TV journalists and the TV technicians. Also they are threatening to bomb the--or attack-- the congregation of the TV satellite channels correspondents, or the international correspondents in the Ministry of Information. This is at the Press Center. And everybody, every journalist, is in a panic because this is a crime against the journalism. This is an unacceptable violation of the journalists who have immunity from being attacked or something, or bombarded. But apparently the US is intent is to continue bombarding so that no word will be coming out of Baghdad to show the severity of the bombing that we are being subjected to.
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! host: Describe what happened to the building of the television station.
Gazwan Al Muktar: The antenna, the satellite channel building was totally demolished. There were hundreds of technicians and people working, and reporters, people working at the station who are right now in a hospital, many of them were killed. Also the Baghdad television station and the “Youth Television” [run by Uday Hussein, the president’s son] building have been bombed. And since morning there has been no television broadcast in Iraq. So we don’t really know what’s happening. I just talked to a foreign journalist this afternoon, and he is shaken up, because he doesn’t know what to do, because he is being again…the Ministry of Information and Press Center where all the journalists congregate…they think it’s going to be targeted tonight-
Gazwan Al Muktar: If that is going to be targeted, many, many of the journalists would leave Iraq and no one would be reporting the severity of the bombing that is happening in Iraq.
Jeremy Scahill: Gazwan are you able to make it out of your house around the city. I know in the initial day of this bombing that we talked to you, you were able to get out and look at what was going on in the city. Are you able to do that now?
Gazwan Al Muktar: Jeremy, I just got back about half an hour ago. I took a tour in Baghdad. I went to Mansour, I went to Adhamiya, I went to Karrada. There are very few people on the road because again yesterday the US said that any vehicle moving on the road is a target, a legitimate target .. and that was coming out of the Centcom in Bahrain, in the briefing. So even right now civilians traveling on the road are being targeted according to the US Central Command and that is totally unacceptable-it’s a total—it’s a burden on the civilians who need to go shopping, who need to attend hospitals or to just mill around in the city seeing what’s happening or visiting relatives who are injured or ah, you know, going around their daily lives.
Amy Goodman: Gazwan Al Muktar, why don’t you just leave?
Gazwan Al Muktar: Leave where?
Amy Goodman: Leave Baghdad.
Gazwan Al Muktar: Every other town is being targeted. Every other town is being targeted It’s not only Baghdad that’s being targeted. Baccuba is being targeted, Mosul is being targeted, Tikrit is being targeted, Hilla is being targeted. God, the whole country is being targeted. What you are hearing is only that Baghdad is being targeted and Basra is being targeted. No, it’s Mosul and Basra, Kirkuk, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Samawa, Nasriya, the whole place is being targeted. Ramadi has been targeted on the western part of the country. So where do you go? You leave your house, where do you go? You go to another place where they’re gonna target you? If you leave your house what do you take with you? You take beds or you take kerosene or you take food or you take—you need a truck to carry your stuff because you are going to last for about a month outside, or maybe longer.
Gazwan Al Muktar: I have taken my family outside Baghdad yes. And I talked to them over the telephone yesterday and they said there was bombing on the western part of the country.
Live From Baghdad, What You Won’t Hear on the Networks: An Ordinary Iraqi Speaks Out
Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent: We’re joined on the phone by Gazwan Al Muktar, a retired engineer and ordinary resident of Baghdad , something that you almost never hear on the US networks. Gazwan, we’re hearing reports that a Baghdad marketplace has been bombed. As many as forty plus people being killed--again, the reports are just coming in--as well about Iraqi TV being hit. What are you hearing in Baghdad right now, Gazwan Al Muktar?
Gazwan Al Muktar: Jeremy, we have been,--since the morning-- continuously bombarded since last night. We are being threatened this night with the severest bombardment since the start of the war. They have attacked the television station and the Iraqi Satellite Channel, which has resulted in the deaths of so many TV journalists and the TV technicians. Also they are threatening to bomb the--or attack-- the congregation of the TV satellite channels correspondents, or the international correspondents in the Ministry of Information. This is at the Press Center. And everybody, every journalist, is in a panic because this is a crime against the journalism. This is an unacceptable violation of the journalists who have immunity from being attacked or something, or bombarded. But apparently the US is intent is to continue bombarding so that no word will be coming out of Baghdad to show the severity of the bombing that we are being subjected to.
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! host: Describe what happened to the building of the television station.
Gazwan Al Muktar: The antenna, the satellite channel building was totally demolished. There were hundreds of technicians and people working, and reporters, people working at the station who are right now in a hospital, many of them were killed. Also the Baghdad television station and the “Youth Television” [run by Uday Hussein, the president’s son] building have been bombed. And since morning there has been no television broadcast in Iraq. So we don’t really know what’s happening. I just talked to a foreign journalist this afternoon, and he is shaken up, because he doesn’t know what to do, because he is being again…the Ministry of Information and Press Center where all the journalists congregate…they think it’s going to be targeted tonight-
Gazwan Al Muktar: If that is going to be targeted, many, many of the journalists would leave Iraq and no one would be reporting the severity of the bombing that is happening in Iraq.
Jeremy Scahill: Gazwan are you able to make it out of your house around the city. I know in the initial day of this bombing that we talked to you, you were able to get out and look at what was going on in the city. Are you able to do that now?
Gazwan Al Muktar: Jeremy, I just got back about half an hour ago. I took a tour in Baghdad. I went to Mansour, I went to Adhamiya, I went to Karrada. There are very few people on the road because again yesterday the US said that any vehicle moving on the road is a target, a legitimate target .. and that was coming out of the Centcom in Bahrain, in the briefing. So even right now civilians traveling on the road are being targeted according to the US Central Command and that is totally unacceptable-it’s a total—it’s a burden on the civilians who need to go shopping, who need to attend hospitals or to just mill around in the city seeing what’s happening or visiting relatives who are injured or ah, you know, going around their daily lives.
Amy Goodman: Gazwan Al Muktar, why don’t you just leave?
Gazwan Al Muktar: Leave where?
Amy Goodman: Leave Baghdad.
Gazwan Al Muktar: Every other town is being targeted. Every other town is being targeted It’s not only Baghdad that’s being targeted. Baccuba is being targeted, Mosul is being targeted, Tikrit is being targeted, Hilla is being targeted. God, the whole country is being targeted. What you are hearing is only that Baghdad is being targeted and Basra is being targeted. No, it’s Mosul and Basra, Kirkuk, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Samawa, Nasriya, the whole place is being targeted. Ramadi has been targeted on the western part of the country. So where do you go? You leave your house, where do you go? You go to another place where they’re gonna target you? If you leave your house what do you take with you? You take beds or you take kerosene or you take food or you take—you need a truck to carry your stuff because you are going to last for about a month outside, or maybe longer.
Gazwan Al Muktar: I have taken my family outside Baghdad yes. And I talked to them over the telephone yesterday and they said there was bombing on the western part of the country.