Sewage and rabid animals pose a significant health threat in Falluja, US military officials have warned.
An army spokesman said the estimated 250,000 people that fled the assault cannot return until the risk posed by stray animals and sewage is eliminated.
US forces retook the insurgent bastion amid heavy fighting last month.
The Red Cross is waiting for US forces to give it the go-ahead to restore the city’s water supply and help identify the hundreds of gathered corpses.
‘Warehouse of bodies’
“Many streets are flooded with sewage water,” Red Cross spokesman Ahmad Rawi, who has just returned from Falluja, told the BBC News website.
He said the city’s water treatment plant has to itself be drained before an assessment can be made of how badly it has been damaged.
Another priority for the agency, Mr Rawi said, is the identification of “hundreds of bodies” collected and stored by US-led forces in a former potato warehouse.
Photographs of the corpses have to be taken and circulated among refugees from the city so that they could be identified and buried as soon as possible.
Dahr Jamail has photos of some of the corpses, including those who were eaten by these dogs, like this one.
In America, confidence that democracy will be established in Iraq has fallen to 47 percent while support for Bush’s occupation in Iraq has “edged up” from 43 percent in June to 48 percent.
“I have no problem with the president’s handling of Iraq,” said Donna Baker, a 56-year-old Republican from Robinson Creek, Ky. “I haven’t heard any plan better.”
Well, of course, if folks like Ms. Baker haven’t “heard” of a better plan for Iraqis, then there must not be one. We’ll just continue to allow the Bush administration to murder them in their homes and render their communities cesspools that only a rabid dog could love.
Great fucking plan.