Robert Fisk on Washington’s ‘Quagmire’ in Iraq, Civilian Deaths and the Fallacy of Bush’s ‘War of Liberation’

by Robert Fisk, Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill

NOTE: THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT

Un-Embedded Journalist
by Robert Fisk; Democracy Now; March 25, 2003

Robert Fisk on Washington’s ‘Quagmire’ in Iraq, Civilian Deaths and the Fallacy of Bush’s ‘War of Liberation’

by Robert Fisk, Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill

NOTE: THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Host: Robert, please set the scene for us in Baghdad right now.

Robert Fisk, The Independent: Well, it’s been a relatively—relatively being the word—quiet night, there’s been quite a lot of explosions about an hour ago. There have obviously been an awful lot of missiles arriving on some target, but I would say it was about 4 or 5 miles away. You can hear the change in air pressure and you can hear this long, low rumble like drums or like someone banging on a drum deep beneath the ground, but quite a ways away. There have only been 2 or 3 explosions near the center of the city, which is where I am, in the last 12 hours. So, I suppose you could say that, comparatively, to anyone living in central Baghdad, it’s been a quiet night.

The strange thing is that the intensity of the attacks on Baghdad changes quite extraordinarily; you’ll get one evening when you can actually sleep through it all, and the next evening when you see the explosions red hot around you.

As if no one really planning the things, it’s like someone wakes up in the morning and says, “Let’s target this on the map today