http://www.heraldnewsdaily.com/stories/news-00165964.htmlUS troops defend raid, say Iraqis faked "massacre"
BAGHDAD - U.S. commanders in Iraq on Monday accused powerful Shi‘ite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that U.S.-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque.
"After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different from what it was. There‘s been huge misinformation," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said.
He rejected the accusations of a massacre that prompted the Shi‘ite-led government to demand U.S. forces cede control of security but declined to spell out which group he believed moved the bodies.
...
Giving the first U.S. military briefing on Sunday‘s events in Baghdad, Chiarelli said the raid by about 50 Iraqi special forces troops backed by some 25 U.S. "advisers" had been the fruit of long intelligence work. But he said he did not know the religious affiliation of 16 "insurgents" who were killed.