Iraq accuses US, UK of bombing civilians

Baghdad, Mar 27: Iraq's health minister accused the United States and Britain on Thursday of deliberately targeting civilians during their invasion of Iraq.

Iraqi Health Minister Omid Medhat Mubarak told reporters that coalition attacks were aimed at breaking the spirit of the Iraqi people. He cited an attack on a Baghdad market Wednesday as being a typical example of improper military actions. Fourteen people died in the bombing.

"They are targeting the human beings in Iraq to decrease their morale," he said. "They are not discriminating, differentiating."
Mubarak said 36 Iraqis were killed and 215 others wounded in strikes on Baghdad on Wednesday. Fourteen people died in a northern Baghdad neighborhood on Wednesday in a blast that Iraqi officials blamed on stray cruise missiles.


"So you see, the American and British mercenaries are targeting civilians regardless of their age," he said. "They targeted shops and small public-sector installations."


Mubarak said the total casualty toll since the US-led war on Iraq began a week ago is more than 4,000, among them 350 dead.

He accused the US and British forces of dropping cluster bombs on civilian targets.

"In Najaf, they destroyed a medical center," he said. "They bombed an ambulance and killed its driver."

Despite the "random bombing," Mubarak said, "medical supplies are in good shape. Our morale is very good." He said dispensaries and hospitals are operating normal.


Mubarak, however, said Iraq was worried about the spread of contagious diseases as a result of water pollution, particularly in southern Iraq.

US Central Command has said that there was no proof US missiles were involved in the civilian deaths, although they did acknowledge using "precision-guided weapons" to target Iraqi missiles and launchers "placed within a civilian residential area."

During a Pentagon briefing, Maj Gen Stanley McChrystal said US forces did not specifically aim at the northern neighborhood of Al-Shaab, "nor were any bombs and missiles fired" there. But he could not say whether the missiles that hit the neighborhood were Iraqi weapons or misguided US missiles.
Bureau Report