2006: A CATALOGUE OF ALLEGED US ATROCITIES

2006: A CATALOGUE OF ALLEGED US ATROCITIES
By Neil Mackay

HADITHA is not the only town where US forces have been accused of murdering innocent Iraqi civilians in reprisal operations. Iraqi police have directly accused US soldiers of killing 11 people – from a baby of six months to a 75-year-old woman – during a raid on March 15 in the village of Abu Sifa in the Ishaqi district 60 miles to the north of Baghdad. Four other children, aged five or under, were also shot dead.

The villagers were killed when GIs rounded them up, put them in a room and opened fire, the Iraqi police said. The US troops then burned the villagers’ cars, killed their animals and blew up the house in which the bodies had been left.

After a brief investigation, the US military came to the conclusion that there was no misconduct by the soldiers and claimed reports that GIs executed civilians were “absolutely false”. The army says it was trying to capture insurgents and explained away most of the civilian deaths as ”collateral damage”. According to army commanders, troops “operated in accordance with the rules of engagement”.

However, what gives the claims so much credence is the fact that an official report has been compiled by senior Iraqi security force officers at the Joint Co-ordination Centre (JCC) in Tikrit. The JCC is a regional security centre set up by Iraqi police in partnership with the US military.

The report on the killings reads: “American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf [a 30-year-old man who died in the raid]. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people … then they bombed the house.”

Brigadier General Issa al-Juboori, the head of the JCC, said the report was accurate and the officer who wrote it was thoroughly trusted, adding: “He’s a dedicated policeman and a good cop.”

Officially, the US claims the raid was the result of a tip-off that an al-Qaeda operative was at the house. Neighbours confirmed that an al-Qaeda member had been at the house, which was owned by a relative, but said the owner was a schoolteacher and he and rest of the family had nothing to do with terrorism .

Local police commander Lt Col Farooq Hussain said autopsies “revealed all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed”. He said the killings were “a clear and perfect crime”.

Ibraheem Hirat Khalaf, the brother of Faiz Harat Khalaf, said he saw US helicopters firing six missiles at the house as they left. Another local man, Rasheed Thair, said: “ We want the Americans to give an explanation for this horrible crime which took the smile and the dream of a spring night from 11 people and destroyed even the toys of children.”

Apart from the attack on Abu Sifa, other allegations of atrocities carried out against Iraqi civilians by US forces in 2006 alone include:

* On March 18, troops from the 101st Airborne Division shot dead a 13-year-old boy and his parents at their home in Dhuluiya claiming they were among eight people killed after a patrol was ambushed;

* On April 26, a man from Hamandiya was reportedly taken from his home and shot by marines;

*On May 4, two unarmed women and a mentally handicapped man were killed in Samarra by the 101st Airborne Division;

*On May 30, US soldiers killed two Iraqi women in Samarra – one was about to give birth. The car they were in was racing to a maternity hospital when soldiers shot at it for failing to stop.

Some 600 cases of abuse by GIs against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan have so far been investigated by the Pentagon. Although around 230 soldiers have been disciplined, most military personnel found guilty of abusing civilians received “administrative” punishment such as being reduced in rank, loss of pay, confinement to base or extra duty. Out of 76 courts martial, only a few resulted in jail terms of more than a year.