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.
The man who lived near the bombing and came forward is probably upset he doesn't get a piece of the 25 million.
Actually, next it will be "they tortured him."
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Yes, our soldiers beat him around the head. That would account for the obvious bruising around the head shown on the picture of his corpse.
/sarcasm off
Even worse, they just told him Zarq's surviving followers won't be needing him as a replacement.
I'm only surprised that it took this long for someone to crawl out of the woodwork and hurl a murder accusation at our Spec Op D-Boys!
Nope, it will be the "If he was alive, he should have had a lawyer and a full medical staff there -- plus Opra!"
I saw at least a half-dozen FReepers predict exactly this claim, yesterday.
And I saw the Tooth Fairy last night!
I sure hope they got a chance to kick the shiite out of him before he assumed room temperature
Actually, I heard one of them say just that on one of the shrieking head shows--minus the Oprah part.
This is war. He is dead. Screw this enemy witness, screw the Yahoo reporter, screw Yahoo and screw the camels they rode in on.
Ok, and so what if they did?
I doubt that highly, but so what if they did?
I don't care if the whipped him up into a devil's food cake and baked him.
He'a dead, and he should be dead.
Now we know where Jack Baur really was on 6/7/2006!
What a boatload of utter crap
I wonder if Murtha has called a press conference on this yet to inform Americans and the world what "cold blooded killers" our soldiers are.
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