What are you waiting for: 10 good guys shot by US troops...?

[bmulligan]

Why is there no outcry? What are you guys waiting for? Doesn't anyone want to tackle this one, or is it just too big a softball?

Funeral for 10 Iraqi Police Officers Draws Angry Crowd

ALLUJA, Iraq, Sept. 13 — Ten Iraqi security officers were buried here today in chaotic ceremonies as more witnesses to the scene in which they died contended that the officers had been killed by American troops at very close range even though they offered no resistance.

Two more officers died today of wounds from the shooting, which occurred early Friday after three vehicles filled with Iraqi security officers crossed paths with an American patrol outside a hospital near Falluja. Their deaths raised the number killed in the shooting to 11, including a Jordanian hospital worker. No American soldiers were wounded in the incident, the United States military said today.

The military acknowledged today that solders from the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment had fired on the Iraqis and apologized for the officers' deaths. "We wish to express our deep regret for this incident to the families that have lost loved ones and express our sincerest condolences," said Lt. Col. George Krivo. He said the soldiers had fired only after being attacked "from a truck by unknown forces."

What's wrong with you people? Killing Iraqi police is not going to win hearts and minds.[/url]

[Midnight Son]

Gee, mulligan, maybe we support our troops but not the idiots that put them in harm's way looking for imaginary weapons of mass destruction? It's war, shit happens.

[Kalle]

[token reply] The US sucks! [/token reply]

[XPav]

See, this is what happens when you take US troops trained to win on the battlefield and turn them into policeman. It takes training before deployment to give combat troops the skills to act as peacekeepers, and these guys didn't have it.

Overall, its an outgrowth of "what, we have to plan for what happens after we take over Iraq????" mentality that plagued the Bush administration. They were so wrapped up in the neocon "we'll just whistle up a democracy and everything will be ok" that they've done a good job screwing up the occupation.

Hopefully, we'll get things turned around now that we've learned some hard lessons. We also have to hope that the Iraqi people decide that its in everyone interest for us to stay there.

[Robert Sharp]

Gee, mulligan, maybe we support our troops but not the idiots that put them in harm's way looking for imaginary weapons of mass destruction? It's war, shit happens.

Today on meet the press or some similar show, someone was making the point that many people in the U.S. don't seem to think of this as a war. They may say they do, and even call it the "War on Terrorism" but they really think of it as a sort of police action, or even less. These people would then think we should be doing what Europe has done for years, which is cope with terrorism, rather than actively fight it, since it isn't a real enemy...in the sense of a war enemy. We can't just go to war and fight it. Budget deficits seem misguided because we can't wage a war on such people. Other people think of it as a real war, and these people accept that there will be casualties, both innocent and non-innocent, because, as you said, it's war, shit happens. They think budget deficits are to be expected because that's what happens in war.

I'd say that most American's really do see it as a war and don't get overly upset when people die over there, whether ours or theirs, or someone else's people. We are getting reports of U.S. soldiers dying just about every day, more than there were during the actual invasion of Iraq. But the public outcry seems to be pretty low. There aren't any big protests or anything, like there was with Vietnam. As for the budget deficit, I bet most Americans don't even know about it, and if they did they probably wouldn't care too much. They are far more worried about their own budget deficits.

[Robert Sharp]

Course I could be wrong!!!!


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...7030_2003sep13

[Qenan]

What's wrong with you people? Killing Iraqi police is not going to win hearts and minds.

What's to say? I think most folks are against friendly fire. It's not like it was policy.

[Midnight Son]

Fearless prediction: As US casualties mount over time, there will begin to be a groundswell of public opinion along the lines of "Bring our troops home!" There may well be protests. It may become a "quagmire" although it hasn't reached that stage yet.

[Jason McCullough]

I remember seeing an article a while back where the Pentagon dismantled its office of peacekeeping or something before the Iraq war.

[quatoria]

The incident is even worse than that snippet reveals. From the same NYT article (didn't know you read the times, Mulligan), let me quote a description of the events, given repeatedly by bystanders and the victims.

Suddenly and without warning, Mr. Adnan said, a United States military vehicle opened fire, putting several rounds through his Nissan pickup truck. Mr. Adnan was wounded in the shoulder and suffered cuts to his face from windshield glass. The other two vehicles pulled off more quickly, across the highway and just in front of the hospital, he said.

The American troops then began to concentrate fire on the two vehicles that had stopped in front of the hospital, Mr. Adnan said. As the Iraqi officers shouted, in English, "Police! Police!" the American soldiers responded, "No police!" and continued firing, he said. One volunteer police officer held up a badge with his force's insignia, but the soldiers shot and killed him anyway, Mr. Adnan said.

one of the Iraqi soldiers fired their weapons, Mr. Adnan said. Mr. Jassim, the commander of the force, said he had been invited to the American base to pick up the bodies of the dead officers and had seen their rifles. In every case, the guns had their safeties on, Mr. Jassim said.

Wesam Mahmoud, another Iraqi officer who was in the truck driven by Mr. Adnan, corroborated Mr. Adnan's story. "The Americans stepped back and started shooting at us," he said.

The description of the shooting by Mr. Adnan and Mr. Mahmoud also closely matched that offered by Abdul Jalil, a member of the Fallujah volunteer police who was also wounded in the shootout.

Mr. Jalil, who was in a truck that was one of the two vehicles stopped in front of the hospital, said on Friday that American troops had fired from close range at his truck even though the Iraqis had desperately shouted, "Police! Police!" Eight of the 10 men in Mr. Jalil's truck died, along with two of the five in the Iraqi police car near it, according to the officers.

This is one king sized mess. Here's a link to the full article. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/in...14IRAQ.html?th

[Lizard_King]

Fearless prediction: As US casualties mount over time, there will begin to be a groundswell of public opinion along the lines of "Bring our troops home!" There may well be protests. It may become a "quagmire" although it hasn't reached that stage yet.

Just keep your fingers crossed, why don't you?

[Jason McCullough]

You really think we're all excited and hoping it goes bad?

[Lizard_King]

You really think we're all excited and hoping it goes bad?

Yes. Sometimes that's the impression I get. That "just enough failure" would be the preferable outcome for some.

[quatoria]

You really think we're all excited and hoping it goes bad?

Yes. Sometimes that's the impression I get. That "just enough failure" would be the preferable outcome for some.

Well, those are your biases playing up again. Not shying away from directly confronting what we're doing wrong is the only possible way to *fix* what's going wrong. Hiding our heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going wonderfully as you seem to want us to do, is the best possible prescription for catastrophic failure.

[Lizard_King]

Well, those are your biases playing up again. Not shying away from directly confronting what we're doing wrong is the only possible way to *fix* what's going wrong. Hiding our heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going wonderfully as you seem to want us to do, is the best possible prescription for catastrophic failure.

Yes, of course. It's always me that's biased, and you all that are simply misunderstood visionaries with THE TRUTH in their hands. Whatever.

[Brian Koontz]

The troops should be brought before a Court of Inquiry and the truth should be brought out. Whoever ordered the firings without verifying enemy status may be dishonorably discharged at the very least, depending on circumstances.

[Midnight Son]

This thread is not about killing some Iraqis by accident. It's about ruffling feathers.

[bmulligan]

Aren't we supposed to be hiring, training, and equiping the 'new' Iraqi police? How hard would it be to equip them with a car that says "POLICE"? And why would they just assume they could launch themselves through a US checkpoint without taking fire? They must be complete idiots.

This article is, not suprisingly, devoid of any facts of the incident, save that 10 iraqis were killed. There's no description of exactly or even vaguely what took place. Radio and TV reports were that they ran through a checkpoint chasing an 'outlaw'. Is this assumption or fact? If they were chasing a vehicle, wouldn't the Americans have also shot up the pursued vehicle? Just another example of shoddy underreporting of a tragic incident to encite shok and awe in the american attitude towards the war.

[Midnight Son]

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. soldiers mistakenly opened fire on uniformed Iraqi policemen chasing highway bandits at night, killing eight officers and a Jordanian security guard and wounding nine other people Friday in this dangerous "Sunni Triangle" city near Baghdad, Iraqi police said.

Fallujah police took fire from the U.S. troops about 1:30 a.m. as about 25 uniformed policemen in two pickup trucks and a sedan were chasing a white BMW known to have been used by highway bandits, said Asem Mohammed, a 23-year-old police sergeant who was among the wounded.

Two of the vehicles pursuing the bandits were painted in the blue and white colors of the Iraqi police, while the pickup truck with the gun mounted on it was white.

As the chase neared a checkpoint near the Jordanian Hospital, the police turned around after losing sight of their quarry, and a nearby American patrol opened fire, Mohammed said.

"We were chasing a white BMW with bandits. We turned around in front of Jordanian Hospital and some American forces started shooting at us," Mohammed said. "

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._re_mi_ea/iraq

How's that? You hiding your head in shame yet? Good.

[TimElhajj]

Aren't we supposed to be hiring, training, and equiping the 'new' Iraqi police? How hard would it be to equip them with a car that says "POLICE"?

They were clearly marked as police, but the troops shot them up anyway.

And why would they just assume they could launch themselves through a US checkpoint without taking fire? They must be complete idiots.

Do you have a source for this? I haven't seen anything about the police trying to barrell through a US checkpoint. All the accounts I've read have been from the surviving Iraqis and each seem to indicate they were drving at high speed to catch a white BMW when they came under fire from US trooops. The US military has given few details, saying basically that they thought they were coming under attack from unknown forces and returned fire.

This article is, not suprisingly, devoid of any facts of the incident, save that 10 iraqis were killed.

Well, maybe you just don't like the facts being reported. Or maybe you don't find Iraqi sources credible, and would like your accounts to come from the Americans. Whatever, there are plenty of facts in the article.

[bmulligan]

First of all, I was not passing judgement on the Iraqis or americans, only the Times for not giving the specific details that the cars were indeed marked "POLICE", along the other gaps of specific details. So get off your high horse for a minute and don't assume I'm arguing contrary to your populist war viewpoint for a goddamn minute.

When the incident happened, the initial national radio reports were that they had run through a US checkpoint, yet no mention of that was in the times article. In your Yahoo site, though I was interested to read that fire was coming from all sides of the Iraqis. I highly doubt this fact as opposing (facing) forces from the americans would not simultaneously open fire endangering the opposite force. You don't stand on 2 sides of an enemy and shoot with your friend in your own line of fire. Unless the Americans were complete idiots!

Ahmed said the shooting lasted about 45 minutes and that all the Iraqi dead were in the armed pickup truck.

The unmarked pickup truck with the mounted gun.............mmmmm, any thoughts on this one Sonny Boy?


In either case, all I'm trying to point out is that these 'news' reports are misleading, sometimes bogus, and definately not backed up by 'reliable' sources either in the field or at the editing desk before they're released onto the wire. So you can get off your fucking high horse too Elhajj.

Or maybe you don't find Iraqi sources credible, and would like your accounts to come from the Americans.

No, the american news reports didn't bother to wait for or find out the details.......THAT's what pisses me off.

[Midnight Son]

Yahoo and the Times got their news from the AP wire. Same source, different spin?

[bmulligan]

Obviously. I wonder how much of the reports were edited before being released on the AP wire. It's infuriating. You get the impression that our troops are a bunch of mindless trigger happy terminators that go around blindly killing Iraqis at every turn. That there's no communication between local and US authorities. Aren't we supposed to be working with these people? I still have to believe that there is more cooperation that we are being led to believe. But we don't hear reports of the successes, only misreports of our failures.

[TimElhajj]

I was interested to read that fire was coming from all sides of the Iraqis. I highly doubt this fact as opposing (facing) forces from the americans would not simultaneously open fire endangering the opposite force. You don't stand on 2 sides of an enemy and shoot with your friend in your own line of fire. Unless the Americans were complete idiots!

There were Jordanian troops (guarding the hospital) firing from the other side. The Jordanians opened fire becasue they thought the Americans were firing at them. Note that one of the 11 killed was Jordanian. The Iraqis were caught in the middle of it all.

I agree that some of the reports could paint a clearer picture, but there were plenty of facts in the Times article posted in this thread. They did't do a recap of the entire story, but I found the interview with the man who collected the dead informative. I haven't been following it that closely, but I seem to have a better grasp of it than you. Where is the source for these initial reports of over-running a checkpoint that you're on about? This is the first I've heard anything like that. Has anyone else heard this?

[Brad Grenz]

To be fair to the troops it was the middle of the night, dark out and a couple of trucks with machine guns mounted on them (you know, the kind they were fighting all the way to Baghdad) flew in a high speed. Troops are ambushed pretty much every day over their so you can understand why they might have assumed the worst. And once they started firing, and the Jordanians started firing it would have been complete chaos. Still a terrible thing. You'd hope the troops would use more discretion, but they're scared of dying too.

There does need to be more communication between the Faloojah police and the Americans. It's my understanding that the independence giving the Iraqi police there was a result of the general hostility towards Americans in that area. Just imagine if there had been some sort of general dispatch. The Americans could have been warned about what was going on, who the good guys are, and probably could have coordinated to help apprehend the bandits.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

FWIW:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...15&ItemID=4192

By Robert Fisk, written for The Independent not freely available on their site, though).

At least it's an independent eyewitness account, even though one mightn't like the source.

[quatoria]

FWIW:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...15&ItemID=4192

By Robert Fisk, written for The Independent not freely available on their site, though).

At least it's an independent eyewitness account, even though one mightn't like the source.

If the accounts within are true, they're absolutely fucking baffling. How could this happen, and what possible rational explanation could there be for the behavior within? 150 bullet holes in the wall of the hospital? Thousands of spent shell casings? An hour and a half of firing at two motionless vehicles? This is insanity. Surely there is some kind of sane explanation for what happened, but the facts, as presented, certainly don't point to one.

[Lizard_King]

By Robert Fisk

Eyeballs...bleeding...

At least it's an independent eyewitness account, even though one mightn't like the source.

That may well be the understatement of the century.

So what happened? Did the Americans shoot down their Iraqi policemen under the mistaken impression that they were "terrorists" - Saddamite or al-Qa'ida, depending on their faith in President George Bush - and then, once their bullets had smashed into the hospital, come under attack from the Jordanian guards on the roof?

NO. IT IS ALL PART OF THE AMERICAN WAR AGAINST THE IRAQI PEOPLE. MU HA HA. HA.

[Daniel Morris]

No Blood For Stability

[graller]

No Blood For Stability

Daniel I rarely agree with you but this one had me laughing on the floor....