Posted on 12/04/2003 4:07:37 PM PST by 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.
They are not monsters. But they are not like us. It took thousands of years for Locke, Hobbes, and Burke to appear in our civilization and it took hundreds more for their basic tenents to be accepted as truth in Anglo/Celtic/American culture and then even more time to spead them to all of Europe and Russia. But they do accept these Western ways. Islam does not. And it has nothing to do with what the Vatican says or had said This is up to you!
You say that in such an apologetic tone. No one in America, least of all the Bush Administration, has ever said that the Iraqi people are monsters.
Point 1: They were ruled by monsters - Saddam, his sons, and somewhere around 49 others...see deck of cards. (plus a few thousand idiot Bathhasts)
Point 2: We Freed The Iraqis
Point 3:The messy process of a developing, fledgling democracy is currently in progress - and going quite well thank you. Predictably messy - but going quite well.
Point 4: Some 200 mass graves with over 300,000 Iraqi citizens murdered at Saddam's whim have been found. There will be no more mass graves....
Point 5: Except for insurgents that try to recreate the past. Welcome to the definition of firepower...US Forces.
U. S. Military kicks terrorists' butts = Massacre
This is Viet Nam propaganda of the Dan Rather type.
CBS News anchor Dan Rather, ABC reporter Cokie Roberts, a U.S. Marine, and others, were hiking through the desert one day when they were captured by Iraqis.
They were tied up, led to the village and brought before the leader. The leader said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish. Before we kill and dismember you, do you have any last requests?"
Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot, spicy chili." The leader nodded to an underling, who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."
Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job til the end." The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."
The leader turned and said, "And now, Mr. U.S. Marine, what is your final wish?" "Kick me in the butt," said the Marine."
"What?" asked the leader. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"
"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the butt," insisted the Marine.
So the leader shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the butt. The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from inside his cammies, and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his M4 carbine, and sprayed the Iraqis with gunfire. In a flash, the Iraqis were dead or fleeing for their lives.
As the Marine was untying Rather and Roberts and the others, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the butt? "
"What!?" said the Marine, "And have you two call ME the aggressor?!?"
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