U.S. reports Iraqis executed some POWs
Officials base allegations on intercepted conversations
and David E. Sanger
WASHINGTON -- Some of the Army mechanics captured Sunday after they took a wrong turn in the Iraqi town of Nasiriya were executed by their captors, probably in front of townspeople in the area, American officials charged on Tuesday night.
It is unclear how many of the seven soldiers killed were executed, rather than slain in a skirmish, as the Iraqis contend. Five other American soldiers were taken prisoner.
Officials based their allegations on accounts that American officials apparently received from intercepted conversations in the area near the Euphrates River. Officials said that many details surrounding the deaths of the soldiers were still unclear.
The accusations regarding the execution of American soldiers came days after a videotape of the Army prisoners and the dead soldiers was broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television network. The tape showed images of at least four bodies; some of the dead appeared to have bullet wounds to the head.
"When the full story comes out, people will be outraged," said one senior military official.
[snip]
Lot of keywords there.
If the Iraqi "journalists" who interrogated our POWs on TV can be identified, they should be executed as war criminals.
To ordinary civilians, we should be gracious and helpful, to Baathists and members of units that have commited war crimes, we should be ruthless and exterminate them.