US forces accused of Iraq 'massacre'

Financial Times ^ | December 3, 2003 | Peter Spiegel and Nicolas Pelham

[Pan_Yans Wife]

The US army came under renewed pressure on Wednesday over its conduct in a battle at the weekend in the central Iraqi town of Samarra, as Iran's senior religious leader accused the American forces of "a savage massacre" in which 54 locals were reportedly killed.

The battle, in which US forces attempting to deliver new Iraqi currency to two Samarran banks were ambushed by a small force of insurgents - said by US officials to have been dressed as fighters from Saddam Hussein's fedayeen militia - has led to wildly differing accounts from American military officials and local witnesses.

Hospital officials in Samarra said only eight people were killed, all of them civilians, including one Iranian pilgrim. Samarra is the burial place of two of Shia Islam's most revered imams.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for coalition forces in Iraq, said he had spoken about the incident on Wednesday to the commander of the division responsible for security in central Iraq, Major General Ray Odierno, but that no investigation had been sought. "He, at this point, believes he has been given the full truth but wants to close out any questions out there," Brig Gen Kimmitt said.

Saadun Isawi, a police official at Samarra hospital, said the facility had received 54 wounded and that the dead included a 73-year-old Iranian pilgrim to the Imam Hadi shrine, a 10-year-old boy and a female employee at Samarra pharmaceutical plant.

Asked about the discrepancy in the numbers of dead, Brig Gen Kimmitt, who said the figure of 54 killed had been arrived at after debriefing troops involved in the action, added: "I can't imagine why the enemy would want to bring a dead body to a hospital."

US officials were at pains to point out that any Iraqi deaths came only after American troops had been ambushed and that the incident had not been instigated as part of the coalition's recently stepped-up offensive operations. They also said conflicting accounts often existed of firefights but that the first rendition from US soldiers engaged in an attack was usually borne out in final reporting. "I trust the reports of my soldiers," said Brig Gen Kimmitt. "The people that attacked those trucks were attacking not only coalition soldiers but were attacking Iraqis trying to provide money for a restored, restabilised, rebuilt Iraq."

According to the official Iranian news agency, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said "the brutal and arrogant occupiers" had "desecrated" a holy Islamic site. Both the outer perimeter walls of the al-Hadi shrine complex, and the mirrors of the shrine itself were scarred by bullets but it was not clear who had fired them. Locals claimed US soldiers had fired indiscriminately at attackers and civilians alike; an American military official acknowledged that munitions used in the engagement could easily have passed through walls behind combatants.

[10mm]

RE: Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki

"Civilians" who support a murderous regime during wartime are fair targets. This is how lessons are learned. Although I agree that it might have cost more Allied lives up front, the peace that was won has lasted generations.

I don't hear any Japanese or Germans screaming "Death to America!" (except for their wacko left. Same as here). In fact, just the opposite. Both of those countries have been blasted into extreme pacifism.

Tikrit, and any other Sunni cesspool should be flattened. If the attacks continue, keep flattening. Muslims understand savage, brute force even more than the Germans or the Japanese.

[Billthedrill]

;-)

[Burkeman1]

Cheap and beneath a poster like you.

[InterceptPoint]

According to the official Iranian news agency, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...

Is there any need to read further than this sentence?

[wimpycat]

US forces accused of Iraq 'massacre'...by Iran's senior religious leader.

If this is considered "pressure", the lefties are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

[Burkeman1]

Japanese bow in your direction and respect for the first ones here.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

We need a serious regime change in int'l journalism schools.

Some reliable sources:

8 Iraqis rally against 'terrorism' ~ BBC  | 11/28/03 | no byline
8 Officials Stand by Number of Attackers Killed in Samarra; Operations Continue  

8 Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing~ [detailed, re. Samarra attacks] ~DoD  | 12/01/03 | Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director for Operations, Daniel Senor, Senior Advisor

[Burkeman1]

So I guess the civilians who supported the Stalinist regime deserved to die without question at the hands of the Germans? All those "communists" they killed got blurred in with Jews, Russians, Ukraninas, Poles, Gypsies?

But let's give the Germans credit at least. They at least had the guts to kill their men, women, and children at ground level where they could see it first hand and had to deal with it.

We just fire bombed cities day and night, let them starve, and then let the Russians or Chinese use them as slave laborers for years in which most never returned!

[2111USMC]

"No wonder the shrine was "desecrated". There were gunmen all over it."

Not only all over it, but in it! Numerous accounts told of the attackers running out of the mosque, in uniform and with weapons, just as the convoy pulled up to their location.

They must have needed the last hate-mongering blessing of the Iman who helped with the planning of the attack.

[10mm]

Russia was the one aggressed against, not the other way around. Had the Russians been the ones to start WWII, with the explicit support of their apparatchik population (as had Germany), then I would agree with that statement.

We just fire bombed cities day and night, let them starve, and then let the Russians or Chinese use them as slave laborers for years in which most never returned!

I lost a Great-Grandfather and a Great-Uncle fighting the Nazis. My Great-Grandmother escaped, with her arm tattooed as a lifetime reminder of all the hatred, suffering and death.

War is hell. If you start one, you'd better win it. All my sympathy has been spent on my relatives whom I will never know.

[Burkeman1]

Ever hear of the Hitler-Stalin Pact? Hitler invaded Poland and then Stalin did as well and both split up Poland not to mention other lessor bits around Romania.

But I guess you are right. An insane dictator invaded another insane dictator! And that concerns the United States how again?

Who controls Poland was an American concern how again?

The Brits said they went to war on "Polish" independence in the first place. Did the USA? Nope. Our stupid warmongering cripple President who was surrounded by spies and lackies sold out half of Catholic and Christian Europe to his hero Stalin!

Poland was invaded and yet we left it in the hands of Communist Russian occupation? But we were supposed to care when the Germans invaded them again somehow?

To the troopers in the field - most knew it as well.

[Burkeman1]

Russia was the one aggressed against

And America was attacked by Iraq when? Who is the "aggressor"? Are you saying America is like Hitler!?

Russia did at least pose a potential threat to Germany? Why wasn't Hitler justified in his "pre-emptive" war againt the Soviets!?

[10mm]

I am quite familiar with the Russo-German Non-Aggression Treaty. Although I agree that, as an American, Eastern Europe was of no concern to our strategic interests; as a Jew of Eastern European extraction, it concerned me greatly. The Poles were just as happy (if not more so) to ship my family off to "work camps" as the Germans were.

I despise Communism (and FDR) as much as Fascism, BUT...I would have never been born if America did not ally with the Communists and ultimately, liberate the camps. I am unable to be objective on this issue.

I believe we have strayed just a wee bit off topic :^) Thanks, Burkeman1, for a spirited debate. I am sure there is much that we agree on, if not this issue.

[10mm]

And America was attacked by Iraq when? Who is the "aggressor"? Are you saying America is like Hitler!? Russia did at least pose a potential threat to Germany? Why wasn't Hitler justified in his "pre-emptive" war againt the Soviets!?

I'll assume that morally-relativistic question was rhetorical and that you do actually see a difference between our war against terrorists who would kill us all, if they had the chance, and Hitler's war to establish his "Thousand-Year Reich".

[rmlew]

I get ticked when people compare the US to Nazi Germany.

[Burkeman1]

Most likely. More than you know. Indeed! Hope to joust or just talk with you again. But for reading. Let me recommend "The Illusion of Victory- America in World War One" by Thomas Fleming. Might show you how us "hyphenates" were treated by our federal government during WWI. Germans, Irish, and Jews were targeted since (ironically) many Jews in America came from Germany or the German Polish frontier. Lynchings of German Americans and the forced closure of their German lanquage newspapers all over this country effectively killed the German American sub group! Almost no one says they are "German American" anymore even though they were a quarter of the population at the time of the revolution!

Wilson was a sick racist who hated the Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Blacks, and every other group that wasn't English, Welsch, Scotch, or Scotch Irish.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I find myself praying for God's will in Iraq.

Young American men and women are dying, and even Iraqi men and women are dying. War is hell... there is no other way around it.

I grieve for the loss of life, on both sides.

I am an American, and I believe the war against terrorism is just, and I believe that the people of Iraq needed their freedom.

But, war and death are still evil. And yet, I hope the future of Iraq will make the price that was paid worth it.

[10mm]

I'll check it out of the library (if it's there) this weekend. Thanks for the recommendation.

[ladyinred]

Are we nuts? Is this a war or not?

[autoresponder]

I'm thinking of one particular flower to describe someone on this thread; that someone not being you.