US AIRSTRIKE KILLS AT LEAST 18 CHILDREN

[Zlatko Waterman]

Iraqis Say Civilians Killed in U.S. Raids
Military Asserts Fatalities in West Were Insurgents

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, October 18, 2005; A01



BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 -- A U.S. fighter jet bombed a crowd gathered around a burned Humvee on the edge of a provincial capital in western Iraq, killing 25 people, including 18 children, hospital officials and family members said Monday. The military said the Sunday raid targeted insurgents planting a bomb for new attacks.

In all, residents and hospital workers said, 39 civilians and at least 13 armed insurgents were killed in a day of U.S. airstrikes in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, a Sunni Arab region with a heavy insurgent presence.

The U.S. military said it killed a total of 70 insurgents in Sunday's airstrikes and, in a statement, said it knew of no civilian deaths.

At Ramadi hospital, distraught and grieving families fought over body parts severed by the airstrikes, staking rival claims to what they believed to be pieces of their loved ones.

In Albu Fahad, a community on the east edge of Ramadi, family members gathered Monday in a black funeral tent. A black banner listed the names of the 18 children and seven adults allegedly killed by the F-15 strike.

Residents and the U.S. military gave sharply different accounts of the air raid.

Both agreed that the incident occurred near a crater left in a road by a bomb that killed five U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi soldiers on Saturday.

Residents said that a second Humvee was attacked at the site Sunday and that its burned wreckage remained at the scene. U.S. forces cordoned it off for one or two hours, then departed with the wreckage still there, residents said.

Children and other local people gathered around the Humvee, said Ahmed Fuad, a resident.

Some of the children were idly pelting the vehicle with rocks when the bomb hit, Fuad said.

Fuad was one of the fathers and brothers gathered under the funeral tent on Monday, as mothers and other female family members mourned in the privacy of their homes, in accordance with Islamic tradition. Fuad said the dead included his 4-year-old son, Saad Ahmed Fuad, and his 8-year-old daughter, Haifa Ahmed Fuad.

Fuad said he was unable to find one of the 8-year-old's legs and had to bury her without it.

Another boy, 6-year-old Muhammed Salih Ali, was buried in a plastic bag after relatives collected what they believed to be parts of his body, mourners said.

Fuad listed the names and ages of what he said were five of the other children killed.

Residents said late Monday that 10 other children were killed in the same strike. The names, ages and other details of the other alleged child victims could not immediately be obtained Monday night after the funeral.

The U.S. military's account of the airstrike said nothing about a second attack Sunday on a Humvee.

According to the military statement, an F-15 crew on a combat patrol saw four vehicles arrive at the scene of Saturday's roadside bomb. About 20 men were inside, the military said.

The men were in the process of planting another bomb in the same crater "when the F-15 engaged them with a precision-guided bomb, resulting in the confirmed death of all the terrorists on the ground," the military statement said.

Insurgents in Iraq frequently use bomb craters from old blasts to hide explosives for more attacks.

The Associated Press also reported that 25 civilians were killed in that airstrike, citing a tribal leader, Chiad Saad.

Officials at Ramadi hospital said at least 13 armed fighters of Abu Musab Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq movement also were killed in the day's bombings, along with the civilians they said were killed.

At the hospital, the fly-covered bodies of three children and a woman lay on the ground outside, with no room left in the hospital's refrigeration units.

Residents said U.S. forces had bombed two houses in northern Ramadi. The women and three children had been inside a home of a wealthy local man, identified only as Haj Abdullah, who had agreed to take in wounded insurgents to tend to them, some residents said. Other residents denied that account.

The U.S. military statement described a string of air attacks Sunday around Ramadi, including the crew of a Cobra helicopter opening fire Sunday night on alleged insurgents seen running from a suspected insurgent safe house. The insurgents had shot at the Cobra as they ran away, the military said.

The Cobra crew killed roughly 10 men, the military said.

Twenty minutes later, an F/A-18 fighter-attack jet crew saw another 35 to 40 men taking weapons from the same suspected safe house and loading them into vehicles.

The pilots hit the house with a precision-guided bomb, killing all the men, the statement said.

Ten minutes later, U.S.-led forces came under small-arms fire in Ramadi, the military said. An F/A-18 hit the building where the fire was coming from with a Maverick missile, and troops on the ground hit the building with missiles from shoulder-mounted launchers.

Up to three insurgents were killed there, the military said.

Ramadi serves as one of the bases and shelters for the insurgency. Iraqi and foreign fighters operate in a string of towns on both sides of the Euphrates River in Anbar province. They ferry weapons, recruits and money from neighboring Syria into Iraq in the province.

Since May, U.S. Marines have launched a series of largely hit-and-run offensives on the Anbar province communities, hoping at least to disrupt insurgent operations.

U.S. forces -- stretched thin in Anbar for most of the war but now building in number -- have increasingly used airstrikes to take out suspected insurgent caches and safe houses, bombing in towns as well as rural areas. The airstrikes allow U.S. troops to hit suspected insurgents without risking firefights or planted bombs on the ground.

In other operations, Marines killed at least 18 suspected insurgents in Anbar, the military said in a statement. The Marine attacks included one against a cave complex where alleged bombers were storing munitions, the military said.

In political violence, a drive-by shooting killed two police officers in the northern city of Kirkuk, and a suicide bomber attacked a funeral for a sheik in Samarra, about 65 miles north of Baghdad, killing two civilians, news agencies said.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[mnaz]

We've got to get the hell out of Iraq. This is flat-out obscene, and it angers me deeply. Of course, we'll get the usual bullshit from designated spokesmen.... "This is very unfortunate, blah blah blah", that is, if they even admit to the killing. It just keeps getting worse. Maybe we'll just start torching villages, like in Viet Nam. Shit, man..... What the hell are we doing?

And I can hear the blather of Hannity's ilk already.... "It's shameful how the 'liberal media' focuses on this incident..... blah blah blah.....how the 'terrorists' aren't assigned any blame, yada yada yada, ad nauseum......"

Disgraceful.

[hester_prynne]

Yes Mnaz, I too am angry, I feel your anger, outrage, I'm with you.
We've been lied to, used and we are continuing to be taken down every day.
It's just horrific, and even more horrific that we can't stop it..only watch in horror at the terror we are inflicting on this world, which is not yours or mine, it's everyone's. You'd never know it anymore though.
And we will get what we deserve and you and I will pay for it, and they will still lie and suck more blood out of everyone.

H

[Zlatko Waterman]

Hester and mnaz:

I don't know if the two of you are aware of this site, but I check it every now and then. It's certainly worth a look, and a recommendation to those who "support our President" and his policies.

( paste)


http://www.iraqbodycount.net/editorial_aug0703.htm

Make sure to check some of the links on this site.


--Z

[mnaz]

That link is pretty damn depressing. What is even more depressing is the lightning speed at which war supporters will dismiss such information as biased and/or inaccurate. Or they will simply point out that Saddam would have killed this many people anyway.

Perhaps supporters of the invasion might even go so far as to claim that the war's initial victims, if they could be polled, might consider their own sacrifice to be for a "worthy cause". That is the mentality we are dealing with.

Rest assured, however, that public support for the Iraq war would have been much much lower, or nearly nonexistent, if Iraq had any way to retaliate against U.S. neighborhoods with bombs of their own.

Like I say, we can go back and forth on the merits of brute military force to remove a brutal tyrant, but for the US to keep pushing the issue indefinitely, prolonging certain bloodshed, with no consideration of any other options, is unconscionable IMO, expecially when the true motive is to establish an imperial-type military presence in Iraq (and domination thereof). I'm fairly certain that this is what that lying band of thieves in DC has in mind (sorry, gotta call it like I see it). Enough. It's time to start coming home.

[Zlatko Waterman]

One more for today, mnaz and Hester:


You may be interested in the testimony of George Galloway, a dissident British MP from Scotland, before the US Congress. Galloway represents a long English tradition of strong dissenting speech, articulately framed and powerfully delivered. In May of 2005, he answered various charges by the "Hannity set" ( as you might put it, mnaz), and other near-indictments floating around.

The event was barely reported at all by the US media, of course, for Galloway, a strong opponent of the US invasion of Iraq, spoke directly and forcefully, showing no deference to the prevailing know-nothing-ism of the American Press and Congress.

This excellent and information-filled link ( and the links within it . . .) gives the full transcript of Galloway's testimony, and much more.


( link to Galloway website material)

http://www.unknownnews.org/050524GeorgeGalloway.html



--Z

[knip]

Or they will simply point out that Saddam would have killed this many people anyway.

well, that IS relevant if discussing whether one should get out NOW, isn't it?

Perhaps supporters of the invasion might even go so far as to claim that the war's initial victims, if they could be polled, might consider their own sacrifice to be for a "worthy cause". That is the mentality we are dealing with.

i see a lot of mentalities

[mnaz]

We killed and maimed untold tens of thousands of people to invade Iraq without an international consensus and mandate. I was merely pointing out that, in response, some people merely shrug and play the Saddam numbers game, as I described. Perhaps the word 'mentality' was a bit strong.... Perhaps 'rationale' is a better word..... (a rather callous rationale, IMO).

As to your statement, "That IS relevant if discussing whether one should get out NOW, isn't it?"...... Of course it's relevant. That's my point. Saddam is already out. We are in a different phase of the war. The Admin. insists it must continue the occupation strictly to "defeat the terrorists" who are leading the insurgency. I bought into this thinking for awhile, but I'm starting to call bullshit on the Admin. on this rationale. It seems clearer to me that long-term imperial interests are the real driving force behind putting down the resistance, and that, to me, is just unacceptable.

[knip]

i can understand that POV, i just don't agree with it...not saying i'm right, but that doesn't mean i'm not, either

if one believes this is all part of some empire-building ruse to get in and control the area, riddled with misinformation, then i can understand the desire to get out now

i just don't believe the central tenet of that argument...part of that is because i don't think the powers-that-be are that smart or forward-looking

also, they don't need to do that for access to oil

[mnaz]

Z....

I read the link. Very interesting. Did the testimony ever reconvene? The transcript ends rather abruptly, here.

You know, I agree with most of what Galloway says. I think it's fairly clear that he is the victim of a right-wing/neo-con smear campaign. There's a lot of that going around, lately. I get a sense of "pot calling kettle black" when I read through these allegations.

However, I will say that, in all honesty, Galloway should have probably scrutinized the source of his campaign funds a bit more closely, that is, if he is to be truly the 100% stand-up guy that he seeks to be. There is an element of "ends-justify-means" in his comments, which I'm not altogether comfortable with, though I understand what he was trying to do.

[mnaz]

knip, this invasion was launched by the inner circle of neo-conservatives, who espouse a doctrine of aggressive pre-emption to gain strategic and material benefit for the U.S. (Project for a New American Century). Plus, I believe that, historically, the US generally seeks some kind of expanded military foothold as the "spoils of war".

When the war began, no one could say if the neo-con policy-makers would push the Iraq occupation fully according to the most aggressive neo-con tenets, but to me, as this war drags on, it seems more clear that the Bush Admin. is determined to plant the flag on Iraqi soil in more permanent fashion. The Bush team may not be "forward-thinking" or "smart", as you put it, but they are an incredibly greedy bunch, to say the least.

[knip]

i'm familiar with PforNAC, and shock and awe, and all the rummy-wolfy crap

yes, the US will attempt to put bases in certain places...most large powers do, but that has more to do with forward security than imperialism...if the threat is high, i believe they will leave, once they've instilled some type of enduring democracy...they left saudi arabia because the threat got too high...they stayed in other places like qatar, bahrain, and oman because the threat did not get high

i think the iraq bases are an acknowledgment that they have to stay until the military and police forces are established enough for iraq to protect themselves from internal threats...this is pretty common nation-building doctrine, albeit that doctrine is a pretty new field


on another note, i recommend a read of this site

http://www.humansecurityreport.info/ind ... &Itemid=63

it's pretty interesting stuff...released yesterday i think

[mnaz]

knip, a long-term US military presence would help enforce an Iraqi "democracy" beholden to US interests. This is not solely a security issue. Not really. And the fact that the US gave up bases in S.A. makes it only more likely that they will try to establish them in Iraq. But as I argued in my other thread, I don't think the U.S. should deem itself entitled to Iraq bases as "spoils of war", deposed tyrant or not.

I see our central impasse. You assume that full civil war would ensue if we withdrew troops, same as the Bush line. This may or may not be true. The point is, we are already in a virtual civil war, and our stubborn persistence itself is helping feed it. I'm suggesting that stubborn persistence isn't the only option to try. I think a phased troop drawdown would actually cause the violence to decrease, and the political process, if it hasn't already been botched too badly, could be allowed to run its course.

We should publicly and officially declare no long-term imperial interest in Iraq, and we should show that we're serious about eventual Iraqi sovereignty with a (declared) troop drawdown. That doesn't mean that troops couldn't be re-deployed if conditions significantly worsened. There are Congressional Reps who have sponsored bills calling for Bushco to officially, by declaration of law, renounce any imperial claims on Iraq, but the Bushites have refused to consider such a bill. I wonder why.

But I think we need a change of strategy, soon. The current one ain't working.

[Dave The Dov]

Wait didn't the British stay in Iraq for a while???? Hmmmm I'm seeing a pattern here with the US now!!!!
_________________
og kush photos

[mnaz]

U.S. imperial influence over Iraq would certainly fit the prevailing pattern of history for the region.

The Bush team has denied any such intent, but really, they have near-zero credibility left, given the amount and size of all the whoppers they've told us, and continue to tell us.

At some point, a long-running, failing policy must be evaluated in terms of its own actual (worsening) reality, and not merely justified on continued speculation of how things might be even worse if said policy were scrapped.