Posted on 11/21/2004 9:24:04 PM PST by Former Military Chick
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 21 - A marine who appears to shoot and kill an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in an NBC News video was not aware that the incident was being recorded, and moments later approached the cameraman with seemingly remorseful words - "I didn't know, sir, I didn't know" - according to the first public description of the events by the cameraman, Kevin Sites, since his brief and somewhat ambiguous initial report.
No weapons were visible inside the Falluja mosque where the shooting took place, on Nov. 13, and the wounded Iraqi made no sudden or threatening moves before the marine shot him, Mr. Sites writes on his Web site, kevinsites.net, in an entry posted Sunday night.
Mr. Sites, a freelance photojournalist who had been hired by NBC News, made it clear that as a veteran of covering wars around the globe, he understood the ugliness and complexity of battle. Nevertheless, he said of the incident in the mosque, "it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right."
His account also raises new questions about another group of marines who entered the mosque just before Mr. Sites and fired on the prisoners - they had been left there, already wounded, after a battle the day before. Mr. Sites was so surprised that the prisoners he had seen there the day before had been attacked again that he informed a Marine lieutenant of the fact before the final shooting - the one he captured on tape - took place.
The video obtained by Mr. Sites has received sensational play around the world, particularly in the Arab news media.
Mr. Sites calls the posting on his Web log an "Open Letter to the Devil Dogs of the 3.1," or the Third Battalion, First Marines. "Since the shooting in the mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw," he wrote, "or explain the process by which the world came to see them as well."
He begins by writing, "I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat." Despite his attempt to be fair, he said, since the Falluja video was broadcast on Nov. 15, he has been "shocked to see myself painted as some kind of antiwar activist." Mr. Sites has received abuse and death threats on some Web sites, and has shut down the discussion section of his own.
He said the marines he was embedded with arrived at the mosque on Nov. 13, and after a series of other events, he heard shooting inside. The other set of marines emerged and were asked by a lieutenant, "Did you shoot them?"
"Roger that, sir," a marine responded. But when the lieutenant asked, "Were they armed?" the marine just shrugged, Mr. Sites wrote.
Inside, Mr. Sites said he was was surprised to see the wounded men from the battle the day before, now shot again. "There don't appear to be any weapons anywhere," he wrote.
He was videotaping some of the wounded men when, in the background, a marine yelled that one of the others was "faking he's dead."
"Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of the his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi," Mr. Sites wrote. "There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging."
Then the marine fired. "There is a small spatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down," Mr. Sites wrote, in what was apparently a suggestion that the man had been alive.
"Well," another marine said, "he's dead now."
Mr. Sites wrote that he could feel "the deep pit of my stomach." The marine who fired, who had been angrily shouting, suddenly changed his tone.
"The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread," Mr. Sites wrote.
"I can't know what was in the mind of the marine," he wrote. "He is the only one who does."
On Sunday, in an episode whose aftermath was caught on videotape, the American military said marines killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded five others in central Ramadi as a van swerved toward a checkpoint. The driver ignored directions to stop, the military said, and the marines opened fire. The military said officials were investigating the incident. Video film from Reuters showed the van riddled with bullet holes and the inside covered in blood.
The marines have the most tenuous of holds on Ramadi, about 30 miles west of Falluja. They have a few downtown posts, but insurgents roam about freely and regularly attack American troops.
An Oil Ministry spokesman said Sunday that insurgents had set ablaze an oil well in the Kirkuk oil fields, leading to a gap in production of 2,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Months ago, after a similar attack in the area, the Oil Ministry hired a foreign company to extinguish the fire and fix the damage in 45 days, at a cost of $2.5 million, said the spokesman, Assam Jihad.
The Oil Ministry was considering doing the same now, he added. Guerrillas have set six northern oil wells on fire in the past two weeks, and none of the fires have been extinguished. In the volatile northern city of Mosul, at least seven more bodies were discovered Sunday. An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, said two had been discovered in west-central Mosul and another five on the city's western fringe. He said the bodies had not been identified.
Meshaal Rahoo, the secretary for the head of the Mosul health department, said the bodies of eight Iraqi policemen had been discovered Saturday 15 miles west of Mosul.
The discoveries occurred after nine Iraqi Army soldiers had been found dead in western Mosul on Saturday with bullet wounds to their heads. Colonel Hastings said Saturday that seven of the nine had been beheaded, but retracted the statement on Sunday. Four headless bodies were found last Thursday.
In a bit of positive news, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Sunday that a cousin of the prime minister, Ghazi Allawi, had been freed by a guerrilla band called Ansar al-Jihad.
The cousin, his wife and their daughter-in-law were kidnapped on Nov. 9, a day after the official start of the Falluja offensive. The two women were released last week.
The spokesman, Taha Ali, said he had received word of the cousin's release through Ibrahim al-Janabi, a senior official in Dr. Allawi's political party.
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unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner
This terrorist was NOT a prisoner!
We need to make sure these two are never embedded either. Of course, that's probably not even probable. These are the barfly reporters.
He wants to have it both ways.
We have to go around putting things into context.
Here is another incident, where the terrorist was indeed playing dead, so that was not an unreasonable assumption on the part of the Marine:
Marines shoot insurgent who was 'playing dead'
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285529/posts
The US military says marines in Fallujah have shot and killed an insurgent who engaged them as he was faking being dead, a week after footage of a marine killing an apparently unarmed and wounded Iraqi caused a stir in the region.
"Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent who while faking dead opened fire on the marines who were conducting a security and clearing patrol through the streets," a military statement said.
"Mr. Sites was so surprised that the prisoners he had seen there the day before had been attacked again that he informed a Marine lieutenant of the fact before the final shooting - the one he captured on tape - took place."
So what does he mean by that?
Site himself admits he knew about the existence of these terrorists there from the day before. Why didn't he warn the Marines????
"Inside, Mr. Sites said he was was surprised to see the wounded men from the battle the day before, now shot again."
Ollie North wrote a good article, pointing out these facts.
War crimes?
Oliver North
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ollienorth/on20041119.shtml
the correspondent who videotaped the shooting, doesn't mention the medical treatment provided to the injured enemy combatants, but he does note that four of the combatants were some of those who had been left behind from the firefight on Friday. If the NBC reporter knew that from being there the day before, why didn't he tell this new group of Marines before they rushed into the room?
None of that is included in the tape, which is now being used to raise Islamic ire at the "American invader." Why? And why did it take more than a day to learn that the Marine seen shooting on the videotape had been wounded in the face the day before if the correspondent knew that when he filed the videotape? Why didn't the original story include the fact that a Marine in the same unit had been killed 24 hours earlier while searching the booby-trapped dead body of a terrorist?
Within hours of the videotaped incident in the mosque, another Marine was killed and five others wounded by a booby-trapped body they found in a house after a gunfight. Why was this not made part of the original story? Even Amnesty International, no friend to the American armed forces, has reported that the Iraqi terrorists have illegally used white flags to lure coalition forces into ambushes. Yet this, too, is absent in the original story.
And more incidents:
Fallujah attacks expose new risks
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285557/posts
FALLUJAH, IRAQ - The white flag may be an international symbol of surrender, but in Fallujah it has become another tool of guerrilla war.
US marines on a foot patrol this weekend paid little attention to a man walking along the road and holding a white flag - a common sight as the conflict dies down and civilians pop up to scavenge for food and water.
But this time, US officers say, as the marines came by, the man dipped into an alley, returned with an AK-47 assault rifle, and sprayed the marines with bullets. Two Americans died, and others were wounded.
In a separate incident, marines were lured into an well-coordinated ambush by men with white flags who appeared to signal that they needed help. When marines got close, gunmen began firing from buildings high above.
Mister Sites should watch his six.
Who cares. How do you think the Marine feels?
One thing we need to remember is that some of those who were released from prison in Cuba have been found fighting our troops in Iraq. Either these people are going to be bandaged up and in prison for life because their is no rehabilitation for them or they can be sent to claim their 80 virgins. I think they want to claim their 80 virgins.
A Marine addresses a freelance camera man as sir?
Does Sites' account seem fishy to anyone else?
How long do we all need to sift fly poop out of ground pepper? Sites is an proven Anti-war activist sent by his America -hating employers (NBC) to aid the terrorist cause by "exposing" our soldiers inhumanity and reporting same in anti-war propaganda.
Let's boot him and them and all the rest of the "reality TV" types out of the battle zones.
The Marine then abruptly turns away and strides away, right past the fifth wounded insurgent lying next to a column. He is very much alive and peering from his blanket. He is moving, even trying to talk. But for some reason, it seems he did not pose the same apparent "danger" as the other man -- though he may have been more capable of hiding a weapon or explosive beneath his blanket.
He did not pose the same apparent "danger" as the other men because he had his hands up in the international sign of surrender. The others did not.
I'd like to know how he can be so sure. From the angle of the camera, the body of the man who is shot is blocked by the body in front of him. You can't see his hands on the video so how can Sites, looking through the camera viewfinder, attest that there was absolutely no movement?
The wounded man then tries again to talk to me in Arabic. He says, "Yesterday I was shot... please... yesterday I was shot over there -- and talked to all of you on camera -- I am one of the guys from this whole group. I gave you information.
OK, Mr. Sites so just where is THIS tape? He clearly says he talked to you and you filmed him. Where is it? What are you hiding?
He doesn't know shit from shineola......phucm !
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