|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
August 7th, 2006 - 4 G.I.’s Tell
of How Iraqi Raid Went Wrong |
|
4 G.I.’s Tell of How Iraqi
Raid Went Wrong New York Times By Paul von Zielbauer August 7, 2006 Baghdad, Iraq, Aug. 6 - When
the burst of machine-gun fire stopped, two of the three Iraqi men were dead,
their bodies chewed by bullets sprayed at them by two American soldiers a few
yards away. But a third man, brains spattered on his face, was somehow still
alive and, with eyes closed, was gasping for air. Specialists Juston R. Graber
and Thomas A. Kemp, surprised to hear gunfire after securing the rural swatch
of land northeast of Baghdad, ran over to find the three Iraqis lying in the
dirt. Their squad leader, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard, also arrived and
inspected the three bodies. A squad medic came on the scene, quickly examined
the man who was still moving and declared him beyond help. Then, according to
sworn statements of what Specialists Graber and Kemp later told Army investigators,
Sergeant Girouard said, “Put him out of his misery.” What happened in the minutes
before and after the three Iraqis were shot on May 9 are at the core of the
military’s case against Specialist Graber and three other members of the
Company C, Third Brigade, 187th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division. All
four soldiers have been charged with murder. All have denied any wrongdoing. Their case is now the
subject of a military hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to
recommend that the soldiers go before a court-martial. In more than a dozen sworn
statements made to Army investigators and obtained by The New York Times, the
four accused soldiers and several other members of Company C recollected
their roles in the assault on a remote island in Tharthar Lake, 60 miles
north of Baghdad. Taken together, their
accounts provide the first detailed narrative of their combat experience, one
part of a much broader mission against insurgent forces that day known as
Operation Iron Triangle. Specialist Kemp later told
the investigators that he did not believe in “mercy killings,” and walked
quickly away. But Specialist Graber, transfixed, lingered over the dying man,
according to his statement. He lifted his M-4 rifle to his
waist, curled his finger around the trigger and fired at the man’s head. He
missed, he told investigators later, striking the dirt. He raised his rifle
again, this time bringing its muzzle within four feet of the man’s cheek. The
bullet pierced the blindfold the man was still wearing. “I felt that it was
the humane thing to do,” he wrote in a sworn statement in mid-June. His shot
was the last of hundreds fired by two Company C squads during the morning
assault. Several soldiers have said
in sworn statements or testimony at the hearing that senior officers,
including the Third Brigade commander, Col. Michael Steele, told them in a
gathering the night before the raid to kill any military-age male they
encountered on the island, where 20 fighters loyal to Al Qaeda were thought
to be. In a statement to
investigators, Colonel Steele has denied giving any such order. On Friday, he
declined, through his military lawyer, to comment for this article. In June, the Army charged
Specialist Graber with one count of murder. Three others in his squad were
charged with the murders of the three Iraqi men after detaining and
handcuffing them. They are Staff Sgt. Girouard, Specialist William B.
Hunsaker and Pfc. Corey R. Clagett. An Army special investigator
is weighing what punishment, if any, to recommend to the 101st Airborne
commander, Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner. If their cases proceed to
courts-martial, they could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. But a review of more than a
dozen statements of several other members of Company C reveals an Army unit
caught between their superiors’ prediction of a fierce battle and the scant
resistance of the Iraqis they found during the three-hour assault. In the predawn darkness,
about 20 soldiers from Company C’s Third Platoon boarded Black Hawk
helicopters before dawn with orders to raid a group of houses on the southern
end of the island in Tharthar Lake. Six Iraqi Army soldiers accompanied them. “Hit the first house, kill
all military-age males, hit any secondary houses, then stand by for follow-on
missions,” was the way Sergeant Girouard described his squad’s mission to
investigators in a May 29 statement. But all they found at the first landing
zone were two empty homes and a pump house. Around 6:30 a.m., Sergeant Girouard’s
squad landed about 70 yards southwest of the second house, several miles
north of the first. As the squad approached, Sergeant Girouard fired his M-4
rifle at a man in a window. Sgt. Leonel Lemus, Specialist Hunsaker,
Specialist Graber and Pfc. Bradley Mason also fired. At the front door,
Sergeant Girouard sent an Iraqi Army soldier, Sgt. Hamed Muhammad, into the
house first. Pouring in behind him, guns ready, they found three Iraqi men
hiding behind two women, a tactic Qaeda fighters were known for, several
soldiers said. The squad moved the women
into a separate room and took the three men outside. The man shot by the
window was lying on his back, bellowing in pain from gunshot wounds to his
midsection and right arm. Soldiers dragged him outside, where the squad
medic, Specialist Micah Bivens, performed first aid. Two minutes later,
Specialist Bivens pronounced the man dead, Sgt. Kevin Ryan wrote in his May
29 statement. Sergeant Muhammad testified
at the hearing for the accused soldiers last week that the man seemed to be
70 to 75 years old. Soldiers zipped him into a black body bag. In front of the house,
Private Mason searched the three men, two of whom wore what soldiers called a
“man dress,” a dishdasha. Specialist Thomas Kemp recorded the men’s names:
Ahmed Farhim Hamid al-Jami, Ziad Jasem Hamid and Nahad Yasim Hamid Gumar. The tactical search, a core
discipline in an infantry soldier’s training, would later become a point of
contention at the hearing for the four soldiers accused of murder. Private
Mason, in testimony last week, said he had thoroughly searched all three. “If
there was a dollar bill on them, I would have found it,” he said. Specialist Graber and
Private Mason guarded the three detainees, who were now lying outside face
down with their hands bound behind their backs. Private Mason was sent into
the house to watch the women. As the three men were being bound, Private
Clagett, on an earthen berm 50 yards north of the house, saw a mud hut with
people inside. As the squad approached the
hut, a man, later identified by soldiers as Shajeed Wayied Shelish, came out
holding a 2-year-old girl in front of him. Sergeant Girouard tried to shoot
the man but could not. “I could not properly engage him because as I moved my
weapon, he moved the baby and put the baby in front,” he told investigators
on May 29. Several soldiers detained
Mr. Shelish and found “several children and women” in the hut, Sergeant Ryan
said. Most of the children were about 7 or 8 years old, Sergeant Muhammad testified.
Sergeant Girouard grabbed the girl. Back at the first house,
Specialist Bivens and Corporal Helton photographed the four Iraqi men.
Sergeant Girouard radioed First Sgt. Eric Geressy and told him they had
killed one man. Sgt. Armando Acevedo, another
member of Company C on that day’s mission, later told prosecutors that he
heard Sergeant Geressy reply, “We’re bringing back these detainees when they
should be dead.” Sergeant Geressy denied saying that. About that time, Sergeant
Lemus and Private Mason told investigators, Sergeant Girouard appeared to
have second thoughts about the four detainees in custody. “He mentioned that
First Sergeant Geressy transmitted over the radio that the detainees should
have been killed,” Sergeant Lemus wrote in a sworn statement in June. Sergeant Girouard gathered
Sergeant Lemus, Specialist Hunsaker and Privates Clagett and Mason around him
in a room in the house and, according to Sergeant Lemus, laid out a plan:
Specialist Hunsaker and Private Clagett were would kill the detainees after
cutting off their wrist ties and ordering them to run away. Sergeant Lemus
and Private Mason told investigators they wanted no part of the plan and
left. Several minutes later,
Sergeant Girouard dispatched 6 of his squad’s 10 soldiers to secure a pickup
zone for an incoming Black Hawk, 70 yards southwest of the house. That left
Sergeant Girouard, Specialist Hunsaker and Privates Clagett and Mason at the
house. Specialist Hunsaker and Private Clagett were guarding the three men,
who were blindfolded, seated and had their hands restrained with zip ties
behind their backs. Sergeant Girouard walked Mr.
Shelish, the man they had taken from the mud hut, toward the pickup zone,
handing him to Corporal Helton. Minutes later, Private Mason, inside the
house with the two women, heard Specialist Hunsaker shout an expletive. He
and soldiers at the landing zone then heard fire from Private Clagett’s
machine gun and Specialist Hunsaker’s M-4. Sergeant Ryan and Corporal
Helton saw the three men sprinting barefoot toward the mud hut. “That was
followed by gunshots as the men fell,” Sergeant Ryan wrote in a sworn
statement. Private Clagett and
Specialist Hunsaker told investigators they had cut the flimsy wrist ties off
all three detainees at once - a procedure considered tactically unsound - to
replace them with thicker plastic cuffs that would not break. They said one
man had suddenly attacked Specialist Hunsaker with a knife as a second man
punched Private Clagett. Sergeant Girouard radioed
his report to headquarters, saying he no longer had three detainees but three
“K.I.A.’s” — killed in action. Copyright 2006 The New York
Times Company External link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/world/middleeast/07mission.html |