- Two days ago, Iraqi Civil Defense service located two individuals east of Balad that were killed when the IED they were attempting to emplace detonated prematurely.
- In Baghdad, Operation Iron Promise continues. As of last evening, 1st Armored Division troops had captured 99 enemy personnel, 154 weapons, 75 artillery and rocket rounds, and significant quantities of IED materials since Iron Promise kicked off.
- Two days ago, an Iraqi vehicle attempted to run a cordon in support of the investigation into a rock -- into the rocket attack at the al-Hayat Hotel. A car approached the cordon at a high rate of speed, and despite other cars turning around and soldiers using voice and visual hand signals to turn around, the car continued to move forward. The driver accelerated through the cordon and rammed one of the Humvees head on, at approximately 50 kilometers per hour, pushing the vehicle 10 to 15 feet back from the impact. Fearing a VBIED, the soldiers engaged the vehicle with small arms and killed the driver.
- In the western zone of operations, a coalition helicopter was downed due to enemy small arms fire near al-Amiriya. Both pilots were recovered without injury. Forces secured the craft site and complete recovery efforts.
- In the central-south zone of operations, a coalition patrol detained three civilian individuals attempting to move Air Force ordinance from an ASP west of As-Sawara. The detainees were turned over to coalition officials at Camp Charlie for further investigation.
- On 13 March, the 1st Bomb Disposal Company from the 50th ICDC Brigade began basic training in Ad-Diwaniyah. Fifty soldiers will be trained to clear ASPs in the region.
- As you know, on 14 January 2004, a criminal investigation was initiated to examine allegations of detainee abuse at the Baghdad confinement facility at Abu Ghraib. Shortly thereafter, the commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force Seven requested a separate administrative investigation into systemic issues such as command policies and internal procedures related to detention operations. That administrative investigation is complete, however, the findings and recommendations have not been approved. As a result of the criminal investigation, six military personnel have been charged with criminal offenses to include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts with another.
- On the issue of the al-Arabiya journalists that were allegedly killed in the vicinity of the al-Hayat hotel, we have been informed of that. We have conducted -- we have initiated and are conducting a separate investigation. I will tell you there are numerous discrepancies between what was reported by the Washington Post and the facts on the ground. For example, it is alleged -- and it is a fact that in the autopsy of the two personnel that were killed, and the driver of the vehicle, that there were five bullets that were involved in that. We have done a round count of all the bullets that were shot at the car in the -- that we thought was a VBIED, not the al-Arabiya car, but the car that crashed through the cordon. We can currently account for all but two of those rounds, so there is a significant discrepancy between those rounds and the rounds that are alleged to have been fired at the al-Iraqia -- excuse me, the al-Arabiya journalists.
Second, the types of wounds that were suffered by the deceased are inconsistent with a moving car fired from a distance. That was very accurate shooting, and at this point it would not lend one to believe that that was -- that there was -- they had the capability of that kind of marksmanship at night. We have asked all al-Arabiya to provide the driver and the vehicle, the KIA that was supposedly being driven by the man that made the statement, so that we can take that information, conduct forensic tests on it as well, and we’re hoping to get to the bottom of this.
We are not at this point denying the story, however, we had the battalion commander on site at the time of the alleged incident and his S-3. Neither of those two gentlemen, nor any of the soldiers, remember any such vehicle, any such satellite truck.
So, the number of discrepancies that we have between what we have been reading in the accounts and the facts that we have on the ground are leading us to push forward with an investigation quite quickly so that we can ascertain precisely what happened at that time.
|