More than 600 Iraqis killed in Fallujah in the past week, hospital chief
says
By ABDUL-QADER SAADI

Not every body in a mass grave was put there by Saddam Hussain. A quick
Google search turned this up. Who actually was responsible for this
mass grave?

Reminds me of the general in the Viet Nam war saying we had to destroy
the village to save it.
__________________________________________________ _____________

Iraqis carry a body to a grave Sunday in a soccer field that's being
used as a cemetery in Fallujah. (AP/Abdul Qader Saadi)

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in fighting
in Fallujah since U.S. marines began a siege against Sunni insurgents in
the city a week ago, the head of the city's hospital said Sunday.

Statistics of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the
city and from the Fallujah General Hospital, said the hospital's
director, Rafie al-Issawi.

The dead totalled more than 600, most of them women, children and the
elderly, since the siege of Fallujah began early Monday, he said.

Bodies were being buried in two soccer fields, one of which was visited
by an Associated Press reporter. Row after row of graves filled the field.

The total number of dead in the city may be even higher than the
hospital's tally, al-Issawi said.

"We have reports of an unknown number of dead being buried in people's
homes without coming to the clinics," he said.


Asked about the report of 600 dead, Marine Lt.-Col. Brennan Byrne said,
"What I think you will find is 95 per cent of those were military age
males that were killed in the fighting."

"The marines are trained to be precise in their firepower . . . The
fact that there are 600 goes back to the fact that the marines are very
good at what they do," he said.

A day earlier, Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine
Regiment, said his batallion - one of three in or around the city - had
confirmed 40 Iraqi insurgents were killed and 19 others were likely dead
throughout the entire campaign.

Bodies were being buried at the soccer fields in Fallujah as residents
took advantage of a pause in fighting since Friday to tend to casualties.

At one of the fields, dubbed the Graveyard of the Martyrs by residents,
an AP reporter saw rows of freshly dug graves with wooden planks for
headstones.

Khalaf al-Jumaili, a volunteer helping bury bodies at the field, said
more than 300 people had been interred there.

Volunteers were seen carrying bodies in blankets and lowering them into
graves while bystanders shouted, "Martyr, martyr!"

It was not known how many were buried at the other soccer field.

Asked Sunday about the number of Iraqi casualties in Fallujah, U.S.
Brig.-Gen. Mark Kimmitt referred reporters to marine spokesmen. But he
insisted that marines are "tremendously precise" in their operations and
suggested insurgents were hiding among civilians, causing civilian deaths.

Nearly a third of Fallujah's 200,000 people fled the city during the
lull in fighting.

During the past week's fighting, marines and insurgents have battled in
residential neighbourhoods, sometimes around mosques, with the marines
calling in tanks and helicopter gunships for support. AC-130 warplanes
have also been used, and marine snipers have taken up positions on
buildings.

Marines say insurgents have used at least one mosque as a firebase to
attack American troops. Witnesses in the city have reported marine
snipers firing from a separate mosque's minaret on insurgents below.