Our rocky "engagement" in Iraq

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/06/07/our_rocky_engagement_in_iraq/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Derrick+Z.+Jackson+columns

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | June 7, 2006

THE US MILITARY calls them engagements. Iraqi families are throwing back the rings.

The military exonerated itself in the killing of children and women in Ishaqi in March. Because troops said they caught one Al Qaeda leader and killed another there, William Caldwell, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said the troops ``properly followed the rules of engagement." Updating the initial military report that only four people were killed, Caldwell said, ``The investigating officer concluded that possibly up to nine collateral deaths resulted from this engagement, but could not determine the precise number due to collapsed walls and heavy debris."

Caldwell added, ``Allegations that the troops executed a family living in this safe house, and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false."

This stance of absolute truth was only more poison in Iraq. At the official level, Adnan al-Kazimi, an aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said Iraq would investigate the case on its own. ``The report was not fair for the Iraqi people," Kazimi told journalists.

In March, Knight Ridder Newspapers obtained a signed local Iraqi police report that said, ``The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women, and two men. Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles, and killed their animals."

The report said the victims ranged in age from 75 to 6 months, and the other children were 5 and under. Other witnesses said US soldiers landed in helicopters and entered what the report called a safe house, firing shots before destroying the building. Local police official Farooq Hussein told Reuters, ``It's a clear and perfect crime without any doubt."

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