BAGHDAD, Iraq The United States ambassador and the top American military commander here together issued an unusual apology on Thursday for the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and the killing of her family, saying that the crime, in which at least four soldiers are suspects, had injured the "Iraqi people as a whole."
The statement came just hours after Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said at a news conference that he might ask the American military to scrap a rule that grants foreign soldiers here immunity from Iraqi prosecution. Such a move would be a direct rebuke to the Bush administration, which has fought tenaciously to ensure that American soldiers are exempt from local or international laws when serving on foreign soil.
"I'm about to talk to the multinational forces to reach solutions that will put an end to such practices," Mr. Maliki said of criminal behavior by soldiers. One possible course of action, he said, would be to "revise the issue of immunity."
"Our people cannot tolerate that every day there is an ugly crime such as that in Mahmudiya," he added, referring to the market town near which the four Iraqis, including a young girl, were killed on March 12.
Mr. Maliki's assertion, which followed similar remarks he made in Kuwait on Wednesday, signaled the growing furor within the Iraqi government over the latest crime. The incident first became public last week, when the Fourth Infantry Division announced that it was investigating the involvement of American soldiers in the rape and slayings.
The rise in political tensions came as sectarian violence continued in Iraq. A suicide car bomber rammed his sedan into a Shiite shrine in the holy town of Kufa, killing at least 12 people, including five Iranians, and injuring dozens, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi and American forces have generally maintained tight security around the southern holy sites of Najaf and Kufa, to which Shiite pilgrims, including many Iranians, flock by the thousands.
The strongly worded apology issued Thursday night by the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad revealed the deep concern among American officials over the criminal episode's potential to damage the entire American project in Iraq.
"We understand this is painful, confusing and disturbing, not only to the family who lost a loved one, but to the Iraqi people as a whole," the two senior officials said in a written statement. "The loss of a family member can never be undone. The alleged events of that day are absolutely inexcusable and unacceptable behavior."
The statement is all the more unusual because no soldiers have been convicted yet or even formally charged. On Monday, a recently discharged Army private, Steven D. Green, 21, was arrested in North Carolina on suspicion of rape and murder. Three soldiers, some of whom are reported to have admitted their roles in the crime to investigators, are confined to base in Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and their weapons have been confiscated.
Mr. Maliki said at the news conference on Thursday that the Iraqi government would conduct its own inquiry into the Mahmudiya crime.
But Iraqi courts have no power to prosecute the soldiers. An order issued under the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which ruled Iraq after the American invasion until June 2004, said that foreign troops, missions and their consultants here are immune from Iraqi law. Orders issued by an occupational authority usually expire when the authority leaves, but the Iraqi constitution has extended the decrees.
Mr. Fadhil said that a committee of local officials was prepared to carry out its own criminal investigation but was awaiting orders from the national government. "Now, the subject has many dimensions," he said. "It's become an international affair."
Complicating matters, "the family doesn't want to say where the bodies are," he added. "The family didn't involve the police when the crime took place. We found out about it only when the Americans revealed it."
A senior American commander in Mahmudiya visited Mr. Fadhil and other local officials on Thursday and "expressed sorrow for the killing of the family and the behavior of the soldiers," Mr. Fadhil said.
He added that the local investigative committee intended to examine the victims' home. The American soldiers are accused of trying to cover up the crime by burning both the body of Ms. Hamzeh and the house. But the body was sufficiently intact for local doctors to find multiple bullet wounds, Mr. Fadhil said.
I didn't see a quote where he admitted US soldiers did it. Did I miss something?
That is not an apology.