|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
December 9th,
2006 - U.S. and Iraqi Accounts Vary Concerning Airstrike |
|
U.S. and Iraqi Accounts Vary
Concerning Airstrike That Kills at Least 20 Iraqis inspected the bodies of relatives killed in the strike, which
also destroyed a building. By Sabrine Tavernise New York Times Published: December 9, 2006 Baghdad, Dec. 8 - The only
thing that was clear from the accounts of Friday’s airstrike by American
forces north of Baghdad was that at least 20 Iraqis had been killed. American forces called in an
airstrike after coming under fire during a raid seeking insurgents. But typical of the fog of
war here, American and Iraqi officials disagreed on just about every other
point. The United States military
said that 20 people had been killed, including 2 women, and that they were
all insurgents tied to Al Qaeda. Iraqi officials gave death tolls that ranged
from 22 to 32, and said that the deceased were two extended families that
included as many as 10 children. As the situation in Iraq
deteriorates, counting deaths and the numbers of attacks here has become a
difficult - and politically charged - business. The Iraqi government
temporarily banned the release of casualty figures this fall, and the Iraq
Study Group, which issued a report on the war this week in Washington,
criticized the American military for what it said was a chronic undercounting
of attacks. But an average day of
violence shows just how difficult counting can be here, particularly in rural
areas that are hard to reach like the site of Friday’s strike, which occurred
in Salahuddin, a predominantly Sunni province north of Baghdad. In a Defense Department
teleconference from Iraq, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second
highest-ranking military commander in Iraq, said that 2007 would be
“absolutely critical” for Iraqis and that an improvement in the situation
could be achieved only by giving more Iraqis jobs and getting political
leaders to reconcile. “I happen to believe that we
have done everything militarily we possibly can,” he said. “I really believe
the key to this conflict is to understand that it’s going to take more than
military action to solve the problems that face Iraq and to pull people
together.” When asked about the proposal
by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group that American troops be drawn down by
early 2008, General Chiarelli said he thought it would be possible as long as
Iraqis and their political leaders were able to follow a set schedule for
reconciliation. In a nod to American
urgings, Iraq’s Ministry of National Dialogue said on Friday that a national
reconciliation conference, one in a series that began earlier this year,
would take place in Baghdad on Dec. 16, Ali Mufeed, a spokesman for the
ministry said. The American military
described Friday’s attack this way: The strike occurred before dawn, shortly
after American soldiers came under fire as they searched buildings. Soldiers
fired back, killing two gunmen, but the shooting did not stop, and the
Americans called in “close air support,” which fired down on the area,
killing 18 people. Two of those killed were women. “Al Qaeda in Iraq has both
men and women supporting and facilitating their operations, unfortunately,”
the military said in a statement. American soldiers found a weapons cache
that included machines guns, suicide vests and rocket-propelled grenades, the
military said. A military spokesman, Sgt.
Sky Laron, declined to give the name of the village where the battle occurred
but said it was 15 miles south of Samarra and 30 miles west of Balad. That description matches the
location of the town of Ishaqi, where local police officials earlier this
year accused American soldiers of killing civilians then covering it up with
an airstrike. The military investigated and later cleared the soldiers. Two Iraqi officials - the
governor of the province and an official from the administration of the town
of Ishaqi — said that the strike had taken place in a village near Ishaqi,
and that it had killed members of the extended families of two brothers,
Muhammad Hussein al-Jalmood and Mahmood Hussein al-Jalmood. A senior official in the
Salahuddin governor’s office said that six children had been killed. Amer
Alwan, the official from Ishaqi, put the number at 10. Lt. Col. Christopher Garver,
a military spokesman, said that American forces had entered the site after
the strike and that they counted 20 bodies. None of them were children, he
said. An Iraqi satellite channel,
Sharqiya, broadcast images from what it said was the scene of the strike,
showing the twisted body of one child, who looked to be about 10. It also
showed people digging in the rubble of a destroyed building and women crying
next to corpses wrapped in colored blankets. The official in the Salahuddin
governor’s office acknowledged that a fight appeared to have taken place, as
investigators found empty bullet casings sprinkled near the site of the
strike. Mr. Alwan said nothing of a battle and contended that all those who
were killed were civilians. “I call on the Americans to
protect the lives of the civilians,” Hamid al-Qaisi, the governor of the
province, said by telephone. He put the death toll at 22. The American command has
tightened the rules by which forces operate in the past year. General Chiarelli, who
championed the changes, said of the strike, “I can promise you that in every
one of these incidents that occurs, that it will be fully investigated.” In southern Iraq, the
British military said that more than 1,000 British and Danish troops raided
villages north of Basra and arrested four Iraqis whom a spokesman identified
as members of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia. Three American soldiers were
killed on Thursday, and two marines were wounded, the United States military
said. Iraqi authorities said that 18 bodies were found across Baghdad on
Friday. Reporting was contributed by
Ali Adeeb, Khalid al-Ansary and Qais Mizher from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees
of The New York Times from Dhuluiya and Basra. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html |