thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:09 pm Post subject: Covering up the trail of dead Iraqis |
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| Quote: |
Name them. Maim them. Kill them.
From the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, airstrikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed "militants," "criminals," "suspected insurgents," "IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers," "anti-American fighters," "terrorists," "military age males," "armed men," "extremists" or "al-Qaida."
The pattern for reporting on such attacks has remained the same from the early years of the occupation to today. Take a helicopter attack on Oct. 23 of this year near the village of Djila, north of Samarra. The U.S. military claimed it had killed 11 among "a group of men planting a roadside bomb." Only later did a military spokesperson acknowledge that at least six of the dead were civilians. Local residents claimed that those killed were farmers, that there were children among them, and that the number of dead was greater than 11.
Here is part of the statement released by U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq, Maj. Peggy Kageleiry:
"A suspected insurgent and improvised explosive device cell member was identified among the killed in an engagement between Coalition Forces and suspected IED emplacers just north of Samarra ... During the engagement, insurgents used a nearby house as a safe haven to re-engage coalition aircraft. A known member of an IED cell was among the 11 killed during the multiple engagements. We send condolences to the families of those victims and we regret any loss of life."
As usual, the version offered by locals was vastly different. Abdul al-Rahman Iyadeh, a relative of some of the victims, revealed that the "group of men" attacked were actually three farmers who had left their homes at 4:30 a.m. to irrigate their fields. Two were killed in the initial helicopter attack and the survivor ran back to his home where other residents gathered. The second airstrike, he claimed, destroyed the house killing 14 people. Another witness told reporters that four separate houses were hit by the helicopter. A local Iraqi policeman, Capt. Abdullah al-Isawi, put the death toll at 16 -- seven men, six women and three children, with another 14 wounded.
As often happens, the U.S. military, once challenged, declared that an "investigation" of the incident was under way.
On Oct. 21, two days before that helicopter strike near Djila, American soldiers, again aided by helicopters, but this time in a heavily populated urban neighborhood, claimed to have killed 49 "armed men" in a "gun battle" in Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. Then, too, the military initially insisted "no civilians were killed or injured." A Shiite citizens' council and other Shiite groups responded that many innocent bystanders had died. Among the 13 dead mentioned in initial reports by local Iraqi police were three children and a woman. Other Iraqi authorities announced that 69 people had been injured.
The U.S. military had no explanation for the widely varying American and Iraqi tallies of casualties. |
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/11/28/iraq_civilian_deaths/index.html?source=rss |
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