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| Iraq |
| US lashes back, claims Iraqi police giving out misinformation |
| 2006-03-23 |
| The U.S. military hit back on Wednesday at what it called a "pattern of misinformation" following Iraqi police accusations that its troops shot dead a family of 11 in their home last week. Responding to comments by police and residents in the town of Ishaqi, north of Baghdad, that U.S. officers had failed to attend a meeting on Wednesday about the incident, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a senior spokesman, told Reuters: "There was no meeting scheduled with any Coalition investigators today. There appears to be a distinct pattern of misinformation surrounding this entire incident. "This is another clear sign of that happening, making allegations for the sake of prompting media reporting and attempting to discredit Coalition operations. This is a pattern we‘ve seen the terrorist-backed insurgency use repeatedly." Relations between the U.S. military and Iraqi police in the mainly Sunni area north of Baghdad -- where many including police are sympathetic to the insurgency -- are strained, with police accusing U.S. troops of killing civilians and the military questioning the credibility of the police. The military has launched an investigation into a raid last Wednesday by U.S. forces, in which an al Qaeda suspect was arrested, because of discrepancies between the police account and that of troops, who said only four people were killed. The Ishaqi inquiry was announced days after the launch of a criminal investigation into events in the western town of Haditha in November, when U.S. Marines shot dead 15 civilians. In Ishaqi, police said 11 people including five children under school age were found bound and shot in their home after the U.S. raid. The military said at the time that four people, including a guerrilla fighter, were killed. Local journalists filmed the bodies of five young children, four women and two men who police said were killed in the raid. Johnson said: "We have said repeatedly we know of four people killed after Coalition forces came under direct fire from the house, resulting in a heavy engagement to suppress it. "We heard a barrage of shooting for 20 minutes and then we heard bombs," said Thiya Hussein, who said his cousin was killed. "After the Americans left we went to the house and found 11 people lying in blood together in one room. Five of them were children. They were bound in plastic handcuffs and shot." "The baby, Husam, who was six-months-old, was shot dead. A 75-year-old woman was shot in the head," he told Reuters. Another neighbor, Abbas Abid, said: "The house was damaged and the family was shot and lying in one room. Accusations American soldiers have killed innocent people has fueled anger at the occupation among Iraqis, who complain that little disciplinary action has resulted from inquiries. Near Ishaqi, at Duluiya, police accused U.S. troops of killing a 13-year-old boy and his parents in their home on Sunday, as well as five other people. The military said soldiers killed seven "terrorists" who attacked a patrol with grenades. In July, an investigation was launched into the killing of a cousin of Iraq ‘s U.N. envoy at Haditha. The results are unknown. Military spokesman Johnson said: We do not target non-combatants in our operations, although we repeatedly find insurgents occupying homes that place innocent people in harm‘s way ... However ... if any misconduct is found, those responsible will be held fully accountable." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 Might need to apply some serious "Sunni-Be-Gone" before calm comes to River City. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-03-23 22:50 |
| #4 May also be discrepancy in what was said to be found and what actually was found. They are learning the Media sound bite very well. There may have been 4 bodies, but much more fun for the media bite to claim the babies and puppies. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-03-23 18:36 |
| #3 ...Are the police making these claims the same ones that even the MSM admits is heavily infiltrated by the bad guyz? Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2006-03-23 12:13 |
| #2 In Ishaqi, police said 11 people including five children under school age were found bound and shot in their home after the U.S. raid. Binding people before execution is an Arab modus operendi, not American. We need to set up a "canary" system of information releases. Establish certain heavily armed decoy patrols with covert escorts. Only certain squads of Iraqi police are given accurate schedules for these patrols. If an attack on a patrol occurs, members of that Iraqi squad get their clock cleaned. There are numerous ways of implicating infiltrators and we need to put them in place. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-03-23 10:53 |
| #1 The wages of appeasement. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-03-23 02:21 |