BAGHDAD, Iraq - A military investigation into allegations that American
troops intentionally killed civilians in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, has
cleared them of misconduct, the U.S. said Friday — even though it acknowledged
the deaths of up to 13 Iraqis in the March raid.
This image is believed
to have been taken a day or two after the Haditha incident, and was made
available in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, June 2, 2006, by lawyer Khaled Salem
Rsayef, but was not taken by him. It purportedly shows the scene in one of
the houses in Haditha, Iraq after two dozen civilian Iraqis were allegedly
killed by U.S. Marines last November, which Rsayef said Friday was carried
out by three or four Marines while about 20 more waited outside.
[AP] |
Meanwhile, a lawyer representing
families of some of the two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by
U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha on Nov. 19 said three or four
Marines carried out the shootings while 20 more waited outside the homes. He
also said victims' relatives turned down a request by U.S. investigators to
exhume the victims' bodies for forensic tests.
The investigation of the March 15 attack in Ishaqi concluded that the U.S.
troops followed normal procedures in raising the level of force as they came
under attack upon approaching a building where they believed an al-Qaida
terrorist was hiding, said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S military spokesman.
Caldwell also acknowledged there were "possibly up to nine collateral deaths"
in addition to the four Iraqi deaths that the military announced at the time of
the raid. The results of the investigation were released after questions were
raised about the original U.S. report as television stations aired AP Television
News footage of a row of dead children in the aftermath of the raid.
The probe was part of U.S. investigations into possible misconduct by
American troops in at least three separate areas of Iraq. Besides Haditha and
Ishaqi, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman could face murder, kidnapping and
conspiracy charges in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man west of Baghdad.
The military said Friday it will cooperate with the Iraqi government in its
own investigation of Haditha and other incidents of alleged wrongdoing by U.S.
troops. "We're going to give them whatever assistance they need as a part of
this investigation," said Army Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the chief of staff
for U.S. forces in Iraq.
Campbell's pledge came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki upbraided
the U.S. military over Haditha, which he called "a horrible crime," and accused
U.S. troops of habitually attacking unarmed civilians.
On Friday, White House press secretary Tony Snow said al-Maliki had told U.S.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad that he had been misquoted. But Snow was unable to
explain what al-Maliki told Khalilzad or how he had been misquoted.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended the training and conduct of
U.S. troops and said incidents such as the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians
at Haditha shouldn't happen.
"We know that 99.9 percent of our forces conduct themselves in an exemplary
manner. We also know that in conflicts things that shouldn't happen, do happen,"
he said. "We don't expect U.S. soldiers to act that way, and they're trained not
to."
