Iraq says will press on with own Ishaqi probe

[Eugene]

Iraq says will press on with own Ishaqi probe
Sat Jun 3, 2006 5:11am ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government believes the U.S. military's exoneration
of U.S. troops accused of killing civilians in the town of Ishaqi in March
was unfair and will press on with its own investigation, an aide to the prime
minister said on Saturday.

Adnan al-Kazimi also said the government would demand an apology from the United
States and compensation for the victims in several cases, including the alleged
massacre in the western town of Haditha last year.

"We have from more than one source that the Ishaqi killings were carried out
under questionable circumstances. More than one child was killed. This report was
not fair for the Iraqi people and the children who were killed," Kazimi told
Reuters.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-06-03T091124Z_01_GEO281763_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-ISHAQI.xml

Related LBN thread: U.S. Military Denies New Abuse Allegations at Ishaqi
also AP: White House says Iraqi leader misquoted

[Selatius]

1. The Iraqi government has no power to try US soldiers if they find evidence

Bush and Paul Bremer made sure that Iraqi forces and the Iraqi government have no jurisdiction over US troops if there is a case where US troops murder civilians.

If they did try to arrest those troops, the US would simply break them out of jail citing legal decrees by Bush.

The Iraqi government needs the US more than the US needs the Iraqi government. If the US left tomorrow, either Sunni militias or Shi'ite militias will overrun Baghdad and sack the Green Zone and obliterate the government seen as a US puppet government.

[ixion]

3. well, notice what he's asking for if they find them guilty

money and an apology. :eyes:

[IndianaGreen]

21. They are sending a fact-finding commision to Ishaqi

The US military repeatedly has pledged to punish any soldier found guilty of atrocities in Iraq, but the decision to clear the troops in Ishaqi fuelled deep mistrust among ordinary Iraqis three years after the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.


A boy stands outside a destroyed
house in Ishaqi (file photo)

"Ishaqi is just another reason why we shouldn't trust the Americans," said Abdullah Hussein, an engineer in Baghdad.

"First they lied about the weapons of mass destruction, then there was the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and now it's clear to the world they were guilty in Haditha," he told Reuters.

The human rights minister, Wijdan Michael, said her ministry would send a fact-finding commission to Ishaqi in the next few days.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E18759BA-FC5D-486F-8322-F8EEDF76BD1E.htm

And the US is admitting today that there was "collateral damage" involving 9 civilians in Ishaqi, notice how US officials contradict each other on their accounts of the Ishaqi raid:

In a separate investigation, the military has determined U.S. soldiers followed proper procedure and will not face charges for the deaths of at least four Iraqis during a raid near the town of Ishaqi on March 15, Pentagon sources said Friday.

The death toll and the manner of the civilian deaths remains disputed. Iraqi officials say 11 people, including five children, were killed in the U.S.-led raid on a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq site about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Four women were listed among the dead and one of the children was 6 months old, the Iraqi officials said.

Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Friday that three civilians were killed along with an insurgent, whom he said was a bomb maker and recruiter. A man suspected of being a Kuwaiti-born al Qaeda cell leader was taken into coalition custody and questioned.

Other U.S. officials said Army soldiers conducting the raid near Balad came under fire and called in an airstrike that destroyed a building and killed the civilians.

Caldwell said investigators reported that up to "nine collateral deaths" may have occurred but that "a precise number could not be determined due to the collapsed walls and heavy debris."

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/02/iraqi.investigation/index.html

[keopeli]

2. Ruh-roh!

Looks like Condi may need to have a little chat with al-Kazimi Boy. This isn't part of the "Iraqi Leader Misquoted" script.

Where's Snow Job?

Turd Blossom?!

Pickles?!

Anyone?!

[truthisfreedom]

4. all i can say is, Adnan and friends, stay out of small planes. more

simply, stay out of Iraq.

[Moderator]

5. kick

[Barrett808]

6. Iraq rejects US probe clearing troops of killings

Iraq rejects US probe clearing troops of killings
By Mariam Karouny and Fredrik Dahl

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq vowed on Saturday to press on with its own probe into the deaths of civilians in a U.S. raid on the town of Ishaqi, rejecting the U.S. military's exoneration of its forces.

Adnan al-Kazimi, an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the government would also demand an apology from the United States and compensation for the victims in several cases, including the alleged massacre in the town of Haditha last year.

"We have from more than one source that the Ishaqi killings were carried out under questionable circumstances. More than one child was killed. This report was not fair for the Iraqi people and the children who were killed," he told Reuters.

The U.S. military had issued a statement about Ishaqi saying allegations that U.S. troops "executed a family ... and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false."

...

Police in Ishaqi say five children, four women and two men were shot in the head, and that the bodies, with hands bound, were dumped in one room before the house was blown up.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060603/ts_nm/iraq_dc_192

[demswin06]

7. I don't give a damn....

what the Army says. There was an atrocity committed here. Glad to see that Al-Maliki isn't going to be a total Bush puppet. We need to get the hell out of Iraq-NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Joanne98]

8. They should dig up the bodies and do forensic tests.

They either have bullets in their heads or not.

[IndianaGreen]

12. Chris Floyd's pictures posted on internet show bullet wounds to head

of children. There is little doubt these people were killed by small arms fire at close range.

[IndianaGreen]

13. Here is Chris Floyd's website and flash movie on Ishaqi massacre

website:

http://www.chris-floyd.com/march/

Flash movie of Ishaqi massacre:

http://isahaqi.chris-floyd.com/

[Joanne98]

14. Oh! I believe the story's true. I just think the Iraqi's should nail it

down. Especially since it would be so easy. Bush keeps getting away with crime after crime, no matter if there's evidence or not. Double-up the proof on all Bush's crimes, just to be sure.

[pooja]

17. these are the pictures that make you cry

Who really suffers.. the innocent people. If these kinds of atrocities were occuring on the streets of America, the war would end really fast.

[IndianaGreen]

9. Iraq is correct in rejecting this US whitewash, just like Italy did theirs

Iraq is correct in rejecting this US whitewash, just like Italy did theirs in the 2005 Sgrena ambush. US is repeating the original whitewash and passing it off as a completed investigation. The US media is latching to the military's whitewash for they fear starting a news cycle of reporting atrocities in Iraq that would undermine public support for a war the media has supported from its start.

The US denial of an Ishaqi massacre is as much a whitewash as the shooting of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari and Italian war correspondent Giuliana Sgrena in March 2005. From Democracy Now:

Giuliana Sgrena Blasts U.S. Cover Up, Calls for U.S. and Italy to Leave Iraq
Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/27/1350235

In her most extended interview to date in the U.S., Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena blasts a Pentagon report that clears the U.S. soldiers who opened fire on her car, wounding her and killing one of Italy's highest ranking intelligence officials. Sgrena says, "It is important that the Americans press their government to tell the truth. Because it is in the interest of Americans, the truth. Not only of Italians."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We begin today with the ongoing controversy over the killing of one of Italy's highest-ranking intelligence officials by US soldiers last month in Baghdad. On Monday, a US Army official reported that a military investigation has cleared the soldiers who shot dead Nicola Calipari on March 4 after US troops opened fire on the car that was also carrying Giuliana Sgrena - the Italian journalist who had just been freed from captivity. Sgrena has publicly rejected the U.S. claims that the shooting was justified. The leaking of that report sparked outrage in Italy.

The Italian officials on the US-led commission are reportedly refusing to endorse the U.S. Army's findings. Italy maintains that that car carrying Calipari and Sgrena had been driving slowly, received no warning and that Italy had advised U.S. authorities of their mission to evacuate Sgrena from Iraq.

Yesterday, Giuliana Sgrena blasted the results of the investigation at a press conference in Rome.

[IndianaGreen]

10. BBC: Iraqis reject US Ishaqi findings

The US can't accuse the Iraqi government of being an insurgent group in order to dismiss the Ishaqi massacre story.

Iraqis reject US Ishaqi findings

Last Updated: Saturday, 3 June 2006, 14:14 GMT 15:14 UK

The Iraqi government has rejected the findings of a US military investigation into the deaths of 11 civilians in the village of Ishaqi, north of Baghdad.

A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said the report, which cleared the US soldiers of wrongdoing, was unfair.

The government will demand an apology and compensation, the spokesman said.

The US said allegations the troops had deliberately killed a family and then covered it up were "absolutely false".

A report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house in Ishaqi, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5044244.stm

[IndianaGreen]

11. Al-Jazeera: Iraq official rejects US killings report

Where is the American press on this? Did they just accept the Pentagon's lame denial of the Ishaqi massacre as fact? Meanwhile, in Aruba...

The Al-Jazeera story carries more details about Iraqi scepticism of US claims of innocence.

Iraq official rejects US killings report

Saturday 03 June 2006, 14:07 Makka Time, 11:07 GMT

Iraq vowed on Saturday to press on with its own investigation into the deaths of civilians in a US raid on the town of Ishaqi, rejecting the US military's exoneration of its forces.

Adnan al-Kazimi, an aide to the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said the government would demand an apology from the United States and compensation for the victims in several cases, including the alleged massacre in the town of Haditha last year.

"We have from more than one source that the Ishaqi killings were carried out under questionable circumstances. More than one child was killed. This report was not fair for the Iraqi people and the children who were killed," al-Kazimi told Reuters.

The US military had issued a statement about Ishaqi saying allegations that US troops "executed a family ... and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false".

Police in Ishaqi say five children, four women and two men were shot in the head, and that the bodies, with hands bound, were dumped in one room before the house was blown up.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E18759BA-FC5D-486F-8322-F8EEDF76BD1E.htm

[louis-t]

15. Have you noticed headlines that omit the name of

the incident where the troops were "cleared"? It seems some would like people to think that the troops at Haditha have been cleared.

[Ms. Clio]

16. Just who does this Prime Minister think he is, anyway?

The head of a sovereign nation, or what?

[IndianaGreen]

18. Could Ishaqi and Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave?

That's the question that correspondent Robert Fisk asks in his latest premier article in The Independent.

Robert Fisk: On the shocking truth about the American occupation of Iraq

Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave? The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of America's army of the slums go further?

Published: 03 June 2006

I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials - an old friend - told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me an American military document showing the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds".

What kind of trauma? Indeed, what kind of trauma is now being experienced in Iraq? Who is doing the mass killing? Who is dumping so many bodies on garbage heaps? After Haditha, we are going to reshape our suspicions.

Article Length: 639 words (approx.)

You must be a subscriber to read the entire article:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article624173.ece

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

19. Update: The PM Says it himself:

Iraqi PM: U.S. rushed Ishaqi probe (cnn)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military rushed to judgment in its exoneration of U.S. troops involved in the March 15 raid that killed civilians in Ishaqi, said an aide to Iraq's prime minister on Saturday.

There are too many "questions and doubts" surrounding the raid 60 miles north of Baghdad, said Adnan al-Kadhimi.

"The Iraqi government should continue its own investigation until the truth can be found," he said.

On Friday, the Army said its investigation had concluded U.S. troops who conducted the Ishaqi raid had acted properly and will not face charges for the deaths of as many as a dozen Iraqis.

The death toll and the manner of the civilian deaths remains disputed. Iraqi officials say 11 people, including five children and four women, were killed, when U.S. troops acted against what they believed to be an al Qaeda in Iraq safe house. One of the children was 6 months old, the Iraqi officials said. (Watch why soldiers were found to be following procedures -- 1:14
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/03/iraq.inquiries/

[IndianaGreen]

20. This whitewash won't wash!

The British press is still pursuing the story while the American press is trying to "cut and run" from it. The Bush regime wants the public to think that Haditha was an aberration, but if stories of other massacres come to light, it will be a lot harder to fool the people into thinking that Haditha was an isolated incident rather than a systemic pattern of war crimes.

[IndianaGreen]

22. Here is the entire Robert Fisk article that I referred to in post 18

Here is post 18:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2320222&mesg_id=2320887

Here is the Common Dreams posting of the same article:

Published on Saturday, June 3, 2006 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Way Americans Like Their War
by Robert Fisk

Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave?

The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of the United States' army of the slums go further?

I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials, an old friend, told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me a U.S. military document showing with the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds."

What kind of trauma is now being experienced in Iraq? Just who is doing the mass killing? Who is dumping so many bodies on garbage heaps? After Haditha, we are going to reshape our suspicions.

It's no good saying "a few bad apples." All occupation armies are corrupted. But do they all commit war crimes? The Algerians are still uncovering the mass graves left by the French paras who liquidated whole villages. We know of the rapist-killers of the Russian army in Chechnya.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0603-27.htm