smooth

News You Won't Find On CNN: American Agents are Blamed for Raid That Became a Massacre

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

07/29/03: The American killing of up to 11 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad during an abortive attempt to seize Saddam Hussein on Sunday has provoked disturbing questions as well as widespread anger in the city. Many witnesses now say armed Americans in civilian clothes also participated in the raid - after which at least three of the wounded were spirited away by US troops and have not been seen since.

Fadi Barash, an unemployed car mechanic, told The Independent yesterday how his relative Mazen Elyas was shot in the head by US troops as he drove towards them on his way to church with his mother Tamantin and brother Thamir. "Mazen was killed - his brain was blown out - but his mother and Thamir were wounded," he said. "The Americans took them away in some kind of pick-up and didn't tell anyone where they went. Mr Barash appealed yesterday, along with other members of his family, to the International Red Cross in an effort to force the Americans to disclose the whereabouts of the wounded - or dead - relatives.

Thamir Elyas, it was disclosed yesterday, was himself a translator for the American army in Baghdad. His official card states that he works for the "Coalition Forces Land Component Command Linguist Pool Management team DNVT 550 2321." Doubly ironic - since he was shot by US forces - is that his card allows him "authorised entry through military checkpoints" between 0700 and 1800 hours each day.

The bodies of the dead were treated shamefully. Mazen Elyas's remains were brought to the Yarmouk hospital but his identity was not registered in the mortuary file. Since his two closest relatives were also shot and taken away by the Americans, there was presumably no one to identity him.

Nor is it known if Tamantine and Thamir - if alive - are aware their son and brother are dead. In the mortuary register at the Yarmouk, I found three victims of the American shooting. One is named as Mushrak al-Ibrahim; his body was brought to the hospital at 7pm on Sunday - almost two hours after the killings - and he died of "gunshot wounds to the head - police case."

"Police case" merely means he did not die in a car crash or other kind of accident. The other two dead men, however, remained unidentified yesterday. As usual, no Americans visited the hospital to ask for details of those they had killed.

Old Mohamed Abdul Rahman was lucky to be alive in the surgery room yesterday. He was shot in the stomach and hit by metal splinters when US troops opened fire on his car during their raid in Mansur. Writhing on his bed in pain with a drip tube in his nose, he allowed his son Firas - who was in the family car when it was hit - to tell their story. "We were only going to a local office with a letter to post abroad," he said. "My uncle Ahmed was driving, my father was sitting beside him and I was in the back of the car. We were driving up to the main Mansur road beside the Al-Sa'ah restaurant and were about to turn right. None of us saw any Americans. There was no barbed wire, no signs, nothing." A burst of shooting brought the car to a halt. "My uncle was wounded in the head and neck and a bullet hit my father in the stomach. We all lay down to hide in the car. I was unwounded. We must have stayed like that for two minutes. My father managed to get out of the car and then people came to help. Despite their wounds, my father and uncle got the car started and tried to drive to the Yarmouk for help. But the Americans had shot out the tyres so we stopped on the main highway and other drivers came to help us."

Other witnesses gave equally terrifying accounts. A doctor at the Yarmouk lost his son as he ran away from the shooting. A woman with at least one child also died. Two cars burst into flames but - contrary to first reports from the scene - they were both empty. The Americans stormed the house of Sheikh Rabia Mohamed Habib, a tribal leader who knew Saddam Hussein before the war, but the building was empty.

In the crowded street, the American troops - and US plain clothes agents they brought with them - apparently regarded every approaching car as a threat and opened fire. Even last night, the exact number of dead remained unknown.

Standing beside his father, Firas Abdul Rahman broke down angrily at one point in our interview. "Why did they shoot at the innocent?" he asked. "What did we do to the Americans? We were only going to post a letter. They shot at us from 50 metres away. Why?"

The United States, of course, has refused to sign up to the International Criminal Tribunal for fear its soldiers serving overseas may be forced to appear before it.

Dragonlich

Nice jab. Makes the whole thing seem a little more subjective than it should be.

The US fucked up in this raid, as they fucked up in many others. US soldiers are very edgy because some Ba'ath party members, common criminals, and foreign fighters have decided to start a guerilla war. Situations like this are a direct result of those actions.

seretogis

At last, my eyes are opened and I see the United States for what it truly is -- a nation of ignorant blood-thirsty murderers who enjoy playing with the tasty grey-matter of cripples and children. How I have been so blind all of these years is a mystery to me. Thank you!

On a more serious note, what makes this any different than the other civilian casualties (an incredibly now number compared to any other modern war, btw) so far? The US will be vilified by its opponents at every turn, how is this anything more than just another attempt to do so?

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Dragonlich

Another question, as a sidenote to Seretogis' comment: What about all the good things the US must undoubtedly do?

Are they trying to rebuild the country at all? If one looks at the news, all one hears is attack this, massacre that, protest this, delay that... Isn't *anything* being done to improve the lives of the Iraqi people? Or could it be that many media people don't really care about those stories, but only about the bad things?

If the coverage of mainstream news media is correct, Iraq now isn't any better off than it was six months ago, and the US hasn't learned anything from their experience in Vietnam... Surely this cannot be true?

Kadath

http://www.export.gov/iraq/
There's us rebuilding Iraq. See the "In The Media" right there on the left? Here's a listing of the last few items. Here's some good we're doing.

Iraqi Governing Council Chooses Leader, at Last
-July 30, 2003 (Reuters)

Seven More Airlines Get OK to Fly to Iraq
-July 29, 2003 (The Associated Press)

Iraq's Governing Council Elects Nine-Member Presidency
-July 29, 2003 (The Associated Press via The Washington Post)

U.N. Says Refugees to Return to Iraq
-July 29, 2003 (Associated Press)

Oil Dips on Iraq Supply, Awaits OPEC
-July 29, 2003 (Reuters)

Iraq Plans to Sell 750,000 Barrels of Oil Daily
-July 29, 2003 (Quicken.com)

Japan Mitsubishi Confirms Iraqi Oil Term Deal
-July 28, 2003 (Reuters)

Mich. Co. Offers Telecom Services in Iraq
-July 24, 2003 (Associated Press via The New York Times)

__________________
it's quiet in here

Dragonlich

Kadath, that list is not exactly what I meant.

What I want to see in the headlines are stories about US troops rebuilding schools, hospitals, restoring water and electricity, helping people in small villages with first aid... You know, the things the US did during the Vietnam war to win the locals over to their cause.

I'm sure they're doing it, but I don't see it anywhere in the news. All I hear is whining about the bad things, and the occasional "oh, and in other news: the Iraqi politicians finally decided to choose a leader"... The news seems to be rather negative, when it can be extremely positive if they'd just show some of the good news for a change.

For example, recently someone started a thread containing a letter (supposedly) from a US soldier serving in Iraq. It contained lots of good news, about how the Iraqis were getting lots of help, how the water and electricity were up and running again, and how most Iraqis seem to like the Yanks. Some people immediately dismissed it as US propaganda. Now, are they correct, or are they simply seeing what they *want* to see, based on the negative media coverage?

HarmlessRabbit

I think eleven civilian casualties during a raid is an incredibly high number. This was not a wartime raid, these were not incidental deaths as a result of a pitched battle. Eleven people were killed while the US military rushed to a place where Saddam wasn't. Along the way, they opened fire in a crowded city on anyone that approached them, killing women, children, and grandmothers. Would you be outraged if this happened in your hometown during a search for, say, the FBI's #1 most wanted?

This incident is more akin to the outrage following the Ruby Ridge incident with the FBI. While Randy Weaver was a murderer and a known bad guy, the killing of his wife and child in the course of the operation were seen by many as the sign of an FBI that was insensitive.

In the same way, many people see indiscriminate killings like this as a sign that the USA is insensitive to the Iraqi people at a time that we are trying to rebuild the country and rebuild trust with the people.

The cultural insensitivity is, to me, the one thing that there is no excuse for. Islamic law, like Jewish law, demands that bodies be buried quickly using particular procedures. To not return the bodies of innocent victims to their families for proper burial is deeply offensive to the Iraqis involved.

chavos

Pardon my cynicism...but while i believe it is possible that US troops used excessive force against civilians...you'd think that other networks would carry this story. Perhaps not US owned, but there are other, indepentant outlets. Why aren't they carrying this story? BCC, Christian Science Monitory, London Times...all have carried stories like this in the past, so why don't they have this one?

seretogis

Excuse me?

You obviously have no clue what happened at Ruby ridge. To compare this incident to what happened there is ridiculous.

http://land.netonecom.net/tlp/ref/weaver.shtml

http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangster..._weaver/1.html

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

The_Dude

i dont know how much to believe this story.

i havent heard anything about this, and all of a sudden this site brings it up.

anyone else found any other site to back this up? i'm sure al jahzeera would have covered this!
(i tried the al jazeera site, but it was in arabic and the english site wasnt up yet)

__________________
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Darrel K Royal

HarmlessRabbit

Why? Compare your weaver stories with this:

See any parallels?

HarmlessRabbit

<b>the_dude</b>
here is a cnn story confirming most of the details:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/...irq.main.intl/

here is a washington post direct source confirming at least five of the 11 deaths.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jul28.html

<i>Jerez de la Frontera, Spain: The other day, U.S. soldiers, failing to find Saddam in a house in Mansour, murdered up to five innocent civilians traveling in a car. Witnesses, according to the BBC, called it a cold-blooded killing for no reason, except for the anger and fear of the troops. Do Americans think this sort of behavior is now okay?

Anthony Shadid: Civilian casualties are a tough issue. The U.S. military does not release Iraqi casualties, so it's left up to the media to track their stories down and report them. It's a story I think we all view seriously. It's difficult to say whether the killings in Mansour were an aberration or a sign of recklessness among the military. Could we have reported more about it? Probably. Will we? I think so. </i>

here's the search i used, you can see a lot of other reporting about the incident:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ed...nG=Search+News

smooth

I originally read this on The Independent. When I went to post it a day later it required a subscription so I had to google a copy.

(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=428529)

Sorry, I forgot to mention this was linked to the other story a few threads down which explicitly states that it's from the same reporter from The Independent.

The Bolshevist

c

__________________
Workers of the world, UNITE! You have nothing to lose but your silly uniforms and paper hats!!

reconmike

Smooth,

is that site you posted real and authentic journalism or is it some guy in his closet writing editorial?

I read most of the "stories" they have posted there and it seems as though it is written by some serious doom and gloom nay-sayers.

The story about the Polish contingent just has Warsaw under it, no name or paper it was written in.

I think informationclearinghouse.com is full of shit.

__________________
Where is Darwin when ya need him?

smooth

Yeah, I don't know about the site--I've never used it before--the people running it may be full of shit. This story isn't from them, however, Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and this story is posted on their site. Regardless, HarmlessRabbit already posted independent confirmation (a list of sites that do not rely on quoting The Independent, yet are still reporting the same events) so it appears to be legit and, consequently, I believe the event occurred.

I do give the soldiers the benefit of the doubt. From a sociological perspective we argue that structures are going to dictate individual belief and interaction.

Since our government has resorted to demonizing and dehumanizing the opposition in order to garner widespread consent of the actions we are doing, soldiers are less able to differentiate between who the "bad" guys are. We do this through mass media, language, mythology, and ignorance.

By using words like "collateral damage" and "mopping up the objective/area" we are able to minimize the consequences of our actions--killing civilians and other humans (in the case of opponents). In our culture, we our tought from birth that the greatest taboo is murder (a form or definition of killing). We differentiate between various acts according to our beliefs--boot camp is one method to strip away one's previous definitions and replace it with those more conducive to the military's objective--to kill people under orders without or despite moral assessment by the individual.

As fear combined with time constriction (people must evaluate and respond to stimulus more quickly as the threat increases) continues to present a greater psychological and physiological impact on the soldiers, we can expect more incidents, where both their lives and those of the people they believe they are helping, to occur.