I can just hear some wonderful general somewhere looking at the dead-head picture of the pig and saying--as he walks off--"Frame it."
Posted on 06/10/2006 8:57:01 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. officials have altered their account of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saying he was alive and partly conscious after bombs destroyed his hideout, and an Iraqi man raised fresh questions Saturday about the events surrounding the end of Iraq's most-wanted militant.
The man, who lived near the scene of the bombing, claimed in an interview with AP Television News to have seen U.S. soldiers beating an injured man resembling al-Zarqawi until blood flowed from the man's nose.
When asked about the man's allegations, military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said he would check. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said Saturday he was unaware of the claim.
The Iraqi, identified as Mohammed Ahmed, claimed that residents put the man in an ambulance before U.S. forces arrived. The American military team then pulled the man from the ambulance and beat him, Ahmed said. He gave a similar account to The Washington Post.
No other witnesses have come forward to corroborate the account of a man resembling al-Zarqawi being beaten. U.S. officials have only said al-Zarqawi mumbled and tried to roll off a stretcher before dying.
On Friday, the military said al-Zarqawi survived the dropping of two 500-pound bombs on his hideout. The bombs tore a huge crater in the date palm forest where the house was nestled just outside Baqouba, northwest of Baghdad.
Iraqi police reached the scene first, and found the 39-year-old al-Zarqawi alive.
"He mumbled something, but it was indistinguishable and it was very short," Caldwell, a spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said Friday.
Iraqi police pulled al-Zarqawi from the flattened home and placed him on a makeshift stretcher. U.S. troops arrived, saw that al-Zarqawi was conscious and tried to provide medical treatment, the spokesman said.
"He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was the U.S. military," Caldwell told Pentagon reporters via videoconference from Baghdad.
Al-Zarqawi "attempted to, sort of, turn away off the stretcher," he said. "Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this airstrike."
Caldwell has not mentioned any other physical interaction between U.S. troops and al-Zarqawi.
But Ahmed told AP Television News that a bearded man was still alive and was lying next to an irrigation canal. He claimed that U.S. troops wrapped a traditional Arab robe, known as a dishdasha, over the bearded man's head and beat him. His account could not be independently verified.
AP footage of the date palm grove showed debris — concrete blocks, shoes and sandals — scattered over a wide area around a large crater. Date palms were ripped from their roots around the blast site.
So much blood covered al-Zarqawi's body that U.S. forces cleaned him up before taking photographs.
"Despite the fact that this person actually had no regard for human life, we were not going to treat him in the same manner," Caldwell said.
The airstrike killed two other men and three women who were in the house, but only al-Zarqawi and his spiritual adviser have been positively identified, he said.
From a helicopter hovering above, a wide swath of destruction could be seen. The debris around the site included a women's slip and other pieces of clothing. Charred dresses, torn blankets, thin sponge mattresses and pillows were in the crater itself.
The debris of concrete blocks and twisted metal reinforcement bars included a pillow with a floral pattern, sandals and a foam mattress with the covering torn off. A cooling unit and part of a washing machine also were in the area.
Lt. Col. Thomas Fisher of the 1st Battalion, 68th Armored Cavalry said his men showed up at the site about five minutes after the blast and cordoned it off. He said they had a patrol in the area already.
"We didn't know it was Zarqawi, we just knew it was a time-sensitive target," he said at the scene early Saturday. "We suspected who it was."
Caldwell also said experts told him it is not unheard of for people to survive a blast of that magnitude. He said he did not know if al-Zarqawi was inside or outside the house when the bombs struck.
"Well, what we had found, as with anything, first reports are not always fully accurate as we continue the debriefings. But we were not aware yesterday that, in fact, Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site," Caldwell said.
His recounting of the aftermath of the airstrike could not be independently verified. The Iraqi government confirmed only that Iraqi forces were first on the scene, followed by the Americans.
For three years, al-Zarqawi orchestrated horrific acts of violence guided by his extremist vision of jihad, or holy war — first against the U.S. soldiers he considered occupiers of Arab lands, then against the Shiites he considered infidels.
Yeah, a reasonable person might come to that conclusion. but we are not dealing with reasonable people here!
I am constantly amazed at the stretches to credulity our enemies, both in Iraq and at home, will claim as fact.
I can just hear some wonderful general somewhere looking at the dead-head picture of the pig and saying--as he walks off--"Frame it."
What's Russert, Stephie, Matthews and Schieffer gonna' do tomorrow... it'll be a riot watching these DNC flacks hemmin' an hawin' all around this!
Do a google image search on 'zarqawi' and the 3rd pic to the right shows him holding a severed head.
[I won't post the pic here due to sensitivities.]
http://images.google.com/images?q=zarqawi&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images
Thanks!
This person should be taken out and beaten for lying. The Iraqis may cut his tongue out anyway.
We murdered him after we killed him. Gotts love it!
ROFLMAO! They just can't help themselves. The've gotta try some way to try and spin this for the dems or the jihadis.
A predictable bump
| Fourteen killed in Iraq as violence rages on |
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| Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On 06/10/2006 11:41:29 AM CDT Reuters ^ | Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:03 PM BST13 | Fredrik Dahl and Michael Georgy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombs killed nine people in Baghdad and gunmen shot dead five butchers in Mosul on Saturday, as U.S. President George W. Bush warned that killing al Qaeda's leader in Iraq would not end violence.Bush said U.S. and Iraqi forces will capitalise on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by cracking down on insurgents trying to regroup after losing their leader, blamed for some of Iraq's bloodiest attacks since the U.S. invasion in 2003."Coalition and Iraqi forces are seizing this moment to strike the enemies of freedom in Iraq at this time of uncertainty for their cause," he... |
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AP's Central Command didn't waste time, did it? They sought and paid an "Iraqi witness" to tell these lies and misinformation for them. This is AP's SOP in Iraq.
Oh, please..
it is possible he saw our guys trying to revive him, beating on his chest, etc - resuscitation/revival techniques can be pretty shocking to watch.
Let's try an experiment. One of you call AP and pretend to be Ahmed weirdbeard. Say you saw American troops risking their lives to save women and children. Let's see if with no corroboration they print that.
Patrick Quinn AP, the same one that the sixteen year-old (from Florida who flew to Iraq), happened to walk through the war zone right into his spot in the green zone.
He loves to push bombings and inflated death counts also.
My point exactly.
CPR when he arrested.
Blood from the nostrils due to pulmonary trauma from the overpressure/ fractured ribs/ punctured lungs/ fractured skull/fracturede sinuses.
When medics worked on a badly injured human, it can look like they are trying to kill him.
omg . . . this is worse than debka.
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