http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/world/iraq/bal-te.claims11oct11,0,3642609.storyCivilian deaths costly for U.S.Iraqis' claims usually rejected, fueling hostility
By David Wood | Sun reporter
October 11, 2007
WASHINGTON - On a dusty street in Samarra, a bustling city north of Baghdad, two brothers, 10 and 12, are carrying plastic bags of groceries home from the market. Approaching an intersection guarded by U.S. troops, they strip off their white undershirts and wave them in the air as they cautiously venture across. Suddenly, shots.
Down goes the 10-year old, his stomach ripped by bullets. Down goes the 12-year-old with his stomach shot away.
This snapshot, as documented by Iraqi witnesses, is the mundane and perhaps inevitable collision between Iraqi civilians and heavily armed troops who are maneuvering, against a shadowy enemy, entirely within a civilian world of schoolchildren, bustling markets and traffic jams.