May 1 marked the fifth anniversary of the infamous “mission accomplished” speech delivered by President George W. Bush aboard a US aircraft carrier. Five years after what Bush proclaimed to be the end of “major combat operations” in Iraq, US casualties have reached a seven-month high, while the Iraqi death toll continues to mount.

In April, 52 US troops were killed in Iraq, the highest number since last September. The bulk of the casualties came in Baghdad, mostly in the crowded Shia slum neighborhoods of Sadr City. The sharp rise in US dead and wounded, and the far greater death and destruction being inflicted on Iraqi civilians, is the result of a month-old offensive launched by US and Iraqi puppet forces against the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to nationalist Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Citing “security officials,” Agence France-Presse said that 1,073 Iraqis were killed last month. This is undoubtedly a gross underestimation of the real death toll. One hospital alone in Sadr City reported taking in 400 bodies.

The two major hospitals in the area, which is home to more than 2 million people, said that they had received nearly 2,500 wounded. The medical facilities are overwhelmed with the number of casualties. They report that they lack sufficient numbers of severe trauma specialists to treat the wounded and are running low on basic supplies, including clean water.

“The situation is very critical and unstable,” Abbas Owaid, director-general of Fatima al-Zahra hospital told the United Nations news agency IRIN. “There is still a pressing need for bandages, pain killers, syringes and other first aid materials. Blood is available as there are people who donate, but we still need more as there are injuries.”

Owaid said that ambulances were coming under attack and that patients and staff alike were prevented from reaching his hospital because US-backed Iraqi forces had taken up positions nearby.

A senior military official at the Pentagon used a press briefing Wednesday to assert that the sharp climb in casualties did not indicate an unraveling of the US “surge,” the escalation of the American intervention that sent another 30,000 troops into the occupied country last year.

“While it is sad to see an increase in casualties, again, I don’t think it is necessarily indicative of a major change in the operating environment, at least from the US perspective,” said Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director for operations of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. He added, “When the level of fighting increases, then, sadly, the level of casualties does tend to rise.” He stressed that the US military had never made a decline in casualties “The measure of how things are progressing in Iraq.”

On the contrary, both the Pentagon and the White House were until recently lauding the relative decline in the carnage against the Iraqi people and the reduced number of US soldiers killed in action as proof of the “surge’s” success. Now, the US military is providing daily body counts in which it invariably describes all those killed as “criminals” and “terrorists.” Hospitals receiving the victims, however, report that the bulk of them are civilians, including large numbers of women and children.

The military has been ordered to achieve a political objective deemed crucial for rescuing Washington’s faltering attempt to impose colonial domination over the oil-rich country. It is to take on and defeat the Mahdi Army and thereby weaken the Sadrists, who have voiced opposition to both the US occupation and the bid to open up Iraq’s oil reserves to exploitation by US-based energy conglomerates. The aim is to complete this task before October provincial elections, which Sadr’s followers would otherwise be expected to win in the key southern provinces that contain the bulk of Iraq’s oil assets.

To carry out this task, Washington is prepared to spill as much Iraqi blood as it takes, and to accept a sizeable increase in American casualties as well. One result has been a steady increase in the number of flag-draped coffins returning to towns and cities across America. The news of these individual tragedies is confined to the local media, with the real cost of this criminal war largely concealed from the American people.

Hospital struck as US military tightens siege of Baghdad’s Sadr City

By Peter Symonds

US missile strikes on a small building adjacent to a major hospital in Baghdad’s Sadr City on Saturday left more than 20 people injured, destroyed ambulances and shook the entire neighbourhood. The incident provides a glimpse of the hellish conditions created for residents of the huge working class slum through the month-long siege by American and Iraqi government forces.

A US military statement claimed that “intelligence reports” had identified the targetted building as “a command and control centre used by criminal elements”. Military spokeswoman Megan Burmeister blamed “criminal groups operating directly out of civilian neighbourhoods”.

Colonel Gerald O’Hara insisted that “great care [was taken] to prevent any collateral damage”. The missiles were “precision guided”.

These comments stand reality on its head. The US-led drive into Sadr City is aimed at destroying the Madhi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and suppressing all resistance in the area, which has been a hotbed of opposition to the American occupation. “Criminal elements” and “criminal groups” are the latest buzzwords employed by the US military and the puppet government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to justify transforming the densely-populated suburb into a battle zone.

There is no way of knowing who was in the building flattened by US missiles. Locals told the media that it was a small centre used by pilgrims. A sign on the gate outside read “Imam Hussein’s Resthouse”, according to the New York Times. Of course, none of the “intelligence reports” were released. In any case, the real criminals are not the Madhi Army militia, which has widespread support among the local population, but the US military which is seeking to consolidate its colonial-style occupation of Iraq.

Claims that it was a “precision” attack are absurd. “The first missile hit the building next door. The second struck an area used as a parking lot for the hospital’s ambulances, damaging a water line and creating a small pond, as well as destroying three ambulances and shattering windows in others. A third missile hit a generator nearby that supplied the neighbourhood; the hospital’s generator was not damaged,” the New York Times stated.

Agence France Presse (AFP) reported from the scene that the “hospital was badly damaged and a fleet of ambulances was destroyed. Just outside the hospital, a shack which appeared to have been the target was reduced to a pile of rubble... The hospital corridors were littered with glass shards, twisted metal and hanging electrical wiring. Partitions in the wards had collapsed. Huge concrete blocks placed to form a blast wall against explosions had toppled onto parked vehicles.”

Hospital staff said the number of injured was at least 28. Head of the Baghdad health department, Dr Ali Bistan, angrily told AFP: “They [the Americans] will say it was a weapons cache. But in fact they want to destroy the infrastructure of the country.”

Sadrist parliamentarian Nassar al-Rubaie told the media: “We blame the government as it stands watching quietly and does not lift a hand. The air strikes are targetting civilians... Today was a serious case because it included the hospitals and the ambulances. This is aggression in the full sense of the word.”

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