File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2001/anarchy-list.0111, message 45


Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 06:39:20
From: Mitchel Cohen <mitchelcohen-AT-mindspring.com>
Subject: UPDATE: US INTENTIONALLY BOMBED RED CROSS COMPOUND


I've received a number of inquiries regarding the msNBC article I posted
yesterday, in which a US official admitted the US had directly targeted the
Red Cross compound in Afghanistan because the Taliban had allegedly been
stealing all the food from the Red Cross, and that bombing it was not an
accident (as the President was reporting). 

I copied and pasted those paragraphs, including the quote, directly from
the MSNBC website at 5 am Oct. 31 and sent it out. By 9 am, several people
wrote telling me the quote was not on the site, although the rest of the
article was still there. Fascinating.

Fortunately, Jared Israel, who runs the website Emperors Clothes, called
the Red Cross in Switzerland and asked their view. The Red Cross
unequivocally denies any stealing of food by the Taliban, and even claims
the Taliban posted guards at the compound at the Red Cross's request to
keep away anyone stealing food. (One wonders why none of the corporate
media called the Red Cross's headquarters in Geneva for a similar quote.) 

- Mitchel Cohen

Here's the material:

URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/redcross.htm

Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about one
article/day.

tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]

======================================RED CROSS SPOKESMEN REFUTE PENTAGON LIES
Interview by Jared Israel [1 November 2001]
======================================
Introductory Note: There has been much news coverage of the U.S. bombing -
twice! - of Red Cross humanitarian warehouses in Kabul. Afghanistan.

Yet, while Pentagon spokesmen such as Gen. Richard Myers and Donald
Rumsfeld have been interviewed and widely quoted, we have seen only one
interview with a Red Cross spokesmen; that was on Canadian TV.

The general thrust of media coverage is that the Red Cross was hit because
it is right next to some military facilities, or even that its warehouses
had been taken over by the Taliban.

So on 31 October I called Red Cross headquarters in Geneva and spoke to two
officials. 

Please feel free to repost or reprint the following interview in any media,
giving credit to www.tenc.net, and without altering the text. 

Here is the transcript. 
-- JI

Jared Israel: The warehouses that have been bombed, are they in an isolated
area or are there many other warehouses right there? 

Christoph Luedi: We had this warehouse which is our compound on its own
with these buildings inside and a wall around. So it is separate. 

Jared Israel: You have a wall around? 

Christoph Luedi: Yeah, it's five buildings; the compound has a wall around;
it's a compound on its own. At least two of the buildings had a red cross
on the top. There are three buildings in a row and then there are two; they
are very close together. As far as we know, one building is still intact.
One has been hit in the first bombardment. Two have been hit in the second
and the other caught fire. 

Jared Israel: There is a news story from CNBC [29 October], they say: 

"Also, there was an interesting case on Friday where the US--American
warplanes hit a Red Cross food warehouse twice. Now initially, it was said
that that was hit by mistake. However today, senior military officials tell
us that that Red Cross warehouse was hit on purpose because it was seized
by the Taliban, who was stealing all that food. Ron." 

Is that a true statement or false? 

Christoph Luedi: This we can confirm is not correct because we started four
days before the bombardment to distribute food out of these warehouses to
disabled-headed families, a distribution which started on Tuesday and
should have been ongoing until Sunday. This distribution was notified to
the Americans especially in light of, because we distributed to different
districts and this leads to a massing of people and we wanted to keep them
[the Americans] informed that the massing people was linked to our
distributions. 

Jared Israel: And that involved the massing of people to receive the food? 

Christoph Luedi: But not around the warehouses. We load it on trucks the
day before. We load it, and then we bring it to the different districts in
Kabul where we distribute. So we gave a plan of distribution to the
Americans, we say, "On Tuesday the distribution is in this district,
District 1, these and these are the distribution spots, on Wednesday these
and these districts and so many beneficiaries, on Thursday, on Saturday and
on Sunday." And this is where they get this information. 

But we were using this food through our own channels. That means we had the
control over this warehouse. The only thing there was security around the
building, our own security and an extremely limited number from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give us protection because after the first
bombing we were afraid of looting so we had to negotiate. So we said OK, we
want to do a distribution but we need to keep this material. And the
Taliban said, OK, fair enough, that's your warehouse. 

[At this point Mr. Luedi consulted with another gentleman nearby; this was
John Wurt, a Red Cross specialist in logistics.] 

Christoph Luedi: He [i.e., Mr. Wurt] is logistician who visits regularly
and he has a clear picture. As I said it is a compound; you go through a
gate. The compound is quite big. We used it for jogging. And he confirms
that it is fairly alone [i.e., isolated]. 

Jared Israel: Could I talk to him for a sec? Is that OK? 

John Wurt: Hello. 

Jared Israel: Hi. So, there's a fair amount of space between the wall
around the compound and the other buildings in the general area? 

John Wurt: As I remember there aren't buildings around in the general area.
There's kind of a residential area as you go down the road to the compound
and then there's nothing much around as I remember and then you go through
the gate into the compound and basically it's open field all around. 

Jared Israel: So this is really a Red Cross compound; this isn't a complex
of warehouses that the Red Cross has some food in? 

John Wurt: No, no, no, we had the whole compound. There's a series of, I
think there was five chambers, some food some non-food, then we had some
other material stored in containerized material that wasn't stuff we were
using on a regular basis. But nobody else's stuff was in our compound. It
was solely for the use of the Red Cross. 

Jared Israel: The Red Cross has a policy of non-discrimination, right? You
give out the food irrelevant of whose people are getting it, based on need? 

Christoph Luedi: Yeah, sure. 

Jared Israel: Do you think they [the U.S. command] object to that? 

Christoph Luedi: I will not speculate on the reasons why this happened
because I don't have the information and that's not my job. Our job is to
try and continue our work within Afghanistan. 

Jared Israel: OK. But you do have this non-discrimination policy. That is a
true statement? 

Christoph Luedi: OK, but humanitarian work should be that, not only of the
Red Cross but also of others. 

Jared Israel: But that is not always true, right? 

Christoph Luedi: Probably not but I will not judge others. But we work
together in a conflict with all parties to the conflict, and we are in
contact with the Americans; we are in contact with the Taliban, with
Northern Alliance, with Pakistan, to discuss what we are doing, why we are
doing it and remind them of their obligations within the international
humanitarian law. That's our job that we have to do with all parties. 

Jared Israel: Thank you for speaking to me.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = 
Further Reading:
= = = = = = = = = == = = 

(1) Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban to be Slaughtered.
Excerpts from a most revealing Congressional hearing with comments by Jared
Israel. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/rohr.htm

(2) 'Did Pakistan Pay WTC Terrorists?' by Jared Israel. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/isi.htm 

(3) "'Bin Laden, Terrorist Monster.' Take Two!" Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/taketwo.htm#c

(4) Washington's Pakistani Allies: Drug Dealers, Killers
By Rahul Bedi in New Delhi Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/allies.htm 

5) To provide more information about the terrorist assault on Macedonia,
sponsored by NATO under Washington's direction, we have posted a list of
relevant articles with brief descrptions. See, 'Washington and its Partners
are Waging a Proxy War in Macedonia' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/list-m.htm


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