BAGHDAD, March 21, 2007
Iraqi Police: Kids Were Decoys In Bombing
Cops Say New Tactic Was Used In Weekend Attack In Northern Baghdad
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Iraqi police officers gesture under a destroyed bridge adjacent to the ministry of finance, following the explosion of a car bomb in Baghdad on March 21, 2007. (Getty Images/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)
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A boy stands by cars destroyed after a car bomb exploded in central Baghdad on March 20, 2007. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
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An Iraqi soldier climbs on top of a tank at a checkpoint in Baghdad on March 21, 2007. (Getty Images/Ali Al-Saadi)
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The account appeared to confirm one given Tuesday by a U.S. general. He said children were used in a Sunday bombing in northern Baghdad and labeled it a brutal new tactic put to use by insurgents to battle a five-week-old security crackdown in the capital.
Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff, said the vehicle used in the attack was waved through a U.S. military checkpoint because two children were visible in the back seat. He said it was the first reported use of children in a car bombing in Baghdad.
"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion, (so) we let it move through, they parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back," Barbero told reporters in Washington. "The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed."
Other U.S. officials said later that three Iraqi bystanders were killed in the attack near a marketplace in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah, besides the two children, and seven people were injured. The officials had no other details, including the estimated ages of the children.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, confirmed Barbero's account but said he couldn't provide more details.
Two policemen, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said the general was referring to a car bomb Sunday that killed eight Iraqis and wounded 28 others in the predominantly Shiite district of Shaab. The attack targeted people cooking food at open-air grills in the street as part of a Shiite Muslim holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's death.
The reports could not be independently confirmed and key details were missing from the police accounts, such as the ages and genders of the children, whether they were among the victims, and what happened to their bodies.
A senior official in the Shaab police department said an investigation was opened after the owner of a shop in the market district said he and other residents initially told a man he could not park his car on the street but relented after seeing the children in the back seat.
Another police officer also said witnesses had reported seeing two children inside the car before it exploded. He said three other cases had been registered since last year in which women and children were used in parked car bombings, although they reportedly got out of the cars before those explosions.
The U.S. military has warned that insurgents are finding new ways to bypass stepped-up security to kill as many people as possible and spread panic. A series of bombings using toxic chlorine since Jan. 28 also raised concerns.
Insurgent tactics have evolved since the war started four years ago and youths often have been among their victims, but the use of children as decoys would signal a new level of ruthlessness in the fight for control of the capital.
Iraqi children have been drawn into the fight in the past, however.
In the deadliest cases, a suicide car bomber sped up to American soldiers distributing candy to children July 2005 and detonated his explosives, killing up to 27 people, including a dozen children and a U.S. soldier.
That occurred about nine months after 35 Iraqi children were killed in a string of bombs that exploded as American troops were handing out candy at a government-sponsored celebration to inaugurate a sewage plant in west Baghdad.
Last April, a Marine told an Associated Press reporter in Ramadi that he was shot at by insurgents who were holding children. Other Marines on patrol in the city west of Baghdad have said Sunni insurgents ask children to check out American defenses or warn them of approaching convoys.
And in September, U.S. soldiers told an AP reporter in Baghdad that children often throw rocks at their vehicles, in what they suspect is an attempt either to lure them into firing range of hidden snipers or to goad the soldiers into shooting at the children.
According to the U.N.'s mission in Iraq, at least 204 children were killed last year in fighting, and nearly 800 others were wounded.
In other developments:
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See all 69 CommentsIt is murder.
Lets go in and do what has to be done in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, once and for all.
Either do the job or get out.
Either do the job or get out.
Posted by bill1fj at 04:50 PM : Mar 21, 2007"
Remind me again what the job is and how we can do it? It sounds like we are going to end up killing every man, woman, and child in Iraq, or else every man, woman, and child in Iraq is going to die killing us.
So tell me again.
"This was not a suicide bombing.
It is murder.
Lets go in and do what has to be done in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, once and for all.
Either do the job or get out."
So, you're plan is to fight murder with murder.
How many innocents do you personally want to kill?
1? 2? 1000?
Morons like you offer no solutions except to go in with both guns blazing.
Thanks to that moron GW Bush, that has already happened - and guess what?
That's why Iraq is in this mess.
GW Bush is the reason why innocents are dying - but that's ok, he's getting the oil.
BTW...
You may be a liberal if....
...You think Anita Hill is a victim and a heroine fighting sexual harassment, and Paula Jones is a lying bimbo.
An interesting sidenote:
You may be a liberal.... If you attribute every minority problem to entrenched, institutional
racism and the legacies of slavery and segregation
You think marriage is obsolete - except for homosexuals.
You believe the National Rifle Association helps criminals while
the American Civil Liberties Union protects the
innocent.
You are "concerned" about what France thinks of the United States
General Barbero seems to be offering us more of his scary brand of "faith-based intel" here, in a possible effort to further justify the targeting of children- (as a potential terror threat:-(.
Barbero told reporters in Washington. "The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed."
General Barbero has little choice but to demonize his "enemies" as much as possible. His high rank leaves him extremely vulnerable to war-crimes prosecution, for the brutal and illegal war of aggression against Iraq.
General Barbero does not demonstrate any honor in his current capacity, so he must seek to excuse his own mounting war-crimes by any available means, including the kind of unsupported scare-mongering presented here.
Posted by feelfree1 at 10:11 PM : Mar 21, 2007
HMM...Okay so terrorists use kids to blow up a car at a checkpoint and this is what you glean from the story....That General Barbero is a war criminal. Could you change your name please to feelingstupid or feelingliberal. You have advertised to everyone openly that you are an idiot with that post. They used KIDS fro chrisake!! and you fu$King pu$$ie$ want to cry about our Fu$King general.
Sure am glad you are being openminded
I would agree with this author, that this is one of the most horrific U.S. war-crimes against the people of Iraq. These men intentionally went to this girl's house, executed this 14 year old girl's Parents and 5 year old sister, then gang-raped, executed, and burned the 14 year old girl's body in an effort to conceal the crimes.
It is no wonder that members of these soldiers' unit were executed by Iraq resistance fighters, in retaliation for their sickening acts against this family.
At least one of the soldiers convicted of this gang-rape/mass-murder, will be eligible for parole in 10 years. I can only hope that he moves in next door to the dubious judge who thought that this was an appropriate sentence for this dangerous war criminal.
This author is misleading here. Members of the U.S. forces have not merely been "accused" of these terrorist acts against this family, these events have been proven in a court of law, with several admissions of guilt, multiple-convictions, and sentencing of some of the perpetrators.
'00 Sore / Loserman
'04 Verry / Backwards
'08 We'llkikyer / Assagain
Posted by feelfree1 at 10:40 PM : Mar 21, 2007
And all those terrorists' attacks on the troops and the IRAQI people are "the right wing conspiracy" right?
Hey do you complain about the "evils of corporations" while spending a large amount of time at STARBUCKS...
I'm curious
Anyway, I think that I will wait for additional analysis from Captain Bloodlust, Major Chaos, and Corporal Punishment, before I make up my mind on this matter.
Posted by feelfree1 at 10:45 PM : Mar 21, 2007
And that's enough for you right. I mean if the name sounds bad, then something must be amiss. I myself miss the good ol days of Hussein being in power and terrorists having a safe haven in the entire country. Things were so much better when Willie was getting head from an intern the same age as his daughter. Head on back to Starbucks adn get a soy latte'...it'll make you feel good again. if only for a little while
When 'Dear Leader' launched his fraud/hype-based war of aggression against Iraq, he (they) accepted responsibility for ALL of the related death, torture, and misery that we have seen as a result. This outcome was predictable, and was predicted by many.
Re: "Hey do you complain about the "evils of corporations..."
I don't think I have ever used that exact quote, but I do often comment on the crimes and excesses of various corporations.
Re: "...while spending a large amount of time at STARBUCKS...I'm curious"
I do like my coffee, but I am not a Starbuck's fan. I usually make my own, either at home, or at work.
Of course all lies are good to justify an increase in troops. We heard this story when the weaping pu$$y pretending to be a volunteering soul in the babies-hospital in Koweit City, went telling her sh*tty-story in front of the house-committee, back 14-15 yrs ago, prior to the first invasion of Koweit. That pu$$y that revealed to be the daughter of the Koweity ambassador to Washington was the biggest liar ever. She pretended the soldiers took the babies out of their incubatorsa nd laid them down on the cold floor. Nonetheless it was all lies and nobody made her pay for the lies she told, and caused the invasion of Iraq. She successfully painted the Iraqi soldiers who were dads, sons, and brothers of little babies, as inhumane and despicable monsters... and we, incredule North Americans, we believed her lies.
It's again the same story, one could guess.
Survey after survey has shown that the vast majority of Iraqis agree, that even life under the brutal Saddam regime was better than what they are facing under U.S. occupation.
Re: "and terrorists having a safe haven in the entire country."
We know beyond a reasonable doubt that non-State terrorism was insignificant in Iraq under the Saddam regime.
We also know that the Baathist leadership under Hussein, was a decidedly secular one, and not favorable to religious extremists.
http://www.dedefensa.org/article.php?art_id=518
'I did a little math and found out that the polls showed a country pretty much divided 50-50 on sanctions versus hostilities back in December 1990 and January 1991. But when the vote was finally taken in the Senate, you may recall, it passed by five votes and in favor of war. Six Senators cited the baby-incubator atrocity as a principal reason%u2014sort of a final, compelling reason to vote for the resolution over their initial or instinctive reluctance to go to war. Several others who voted for the resolution said they thought Iraqi atrocities in general were a good reason to go to war. As you may know, Niyarah was not only a liar, but she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. That is the story I revealed in The New York Times in January of 1992 on the op-ed page.'
Wow! With due apology, you really took her veil away. Is she still in Washington?
Re: "And that's enough for you right. I mean if the name sounds bad, then something must be amiss."
You misunderstand me. I am simply pointing out the irony of a high-ranking commander in a brutal and illegal war of aggerssion, being named 'Barbero'.
That scenario is worthy of a comic book, and judging from his statement, so is his imagination.
Wow! With due apology, you really took her veil away. Is she still in Washington?
Posted by diplomacy3
-My goal here is not to determine if she is still in Washington or not, but it's matter of saying to the lie-gulping journalists, please inquire little deeper before you publish whatever may cause a bad perception of people and fall in the the government's game. Stay eye-opened and not gulp everything that those incompetent journalists try to instillate in our minds.
That is a good reminder about the Kuwaiti "incubator" hoax.
Looking back at GW1, we can also recall the U.S. scaring the Saudis into cooperating by showing them satellite "photos" of Iraqi tanks lined up on their border- tanks that were never there at all.
On the bright side, the Internet has been a powerful counterbalance against these kinds of blatant propaganda efforts.
"Six Senators cited the baby-incubator atrocity as a principal reason%u2014sort of a final, compelling reason to vote for the resolution over their initial or instinctive reluctance to go to war. Several others who voted for the resolution said they thought Iraqi atrocities in general were a good reason to go to war. As you may know, Niyarah was not only a liar, but she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States."
I remember this well.
The sad fact is that many people still don't know that the "baby-incubator atrocity" story was just one lie in a series of lies.
http://www.hbo.com/films/livefrombaghdad/related.shtml
Posted by feelfree1
-pretty sure many of older ones remember this unfortuante and blatant episode, but many young 'CBSer' souls just don't. Our conscience dictate us to bring up those events and make them public, and yep you're right Internet is a great tool in countering this mis-information.
What a coincidence! One of the main elements of going to war against Iraq was the raw intel. provided by the German intel. about the existence of mobile chemical labs. which C.Powel took to the UN to convince it. Or the other way around the US trumpeted the existence of Iraqi drones and its likely attack before the invasion. Big game!
"feelin.......have you counted the days until you can pull that tab for Hillary.
'00 Sore / Loserman
'04 Verry / Backwards
'08 We'llkikyer / Assagain"
Dream on - people have already realized what fascists GW Bush and ******** Cheney are - and in '08, they will be thrown out of office.
I'm hoping that they'll also face an International Court of Law for their crimes against humanity.
If the International Court of Law needs an executioner, I'm available.
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