BAGHDAD, Feb. 4, 2008
U.S. Accidentally Kills 9 Iraqi Civilians
Military Says 3 More Innocents Injured During Operation Chasing Alleged Al Qaeda Fighters
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Iraqi women and children wait for medical care as a U.S. Army soldier from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment stands guard at a temporary medical clinic in Beijia village in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, Iraq on Friday, Feb. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
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The law allowing lower-level party members who supported Saddam Hussein to be rehired in government positions is the first of 18 pieces of benchmark legislation demanded by the Bush administration to promote reconciliation. (CBS)
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Pallbearers carry the casket of Army Sgt. Jon M. Schoolcraft III during funeral service at Wapakoneta High School in Wapakoneta, Ohio on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008. Schoolcraft was killed during his second tour of duty in Iraq. (AP/N. Lauron, Columbus Dispatch)
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Video Iraqi Policewomen Subjugated After bombs were strapped to mentally-disabled Iraqi women in a deadly attack, some say that such tragedies could be avoided if Iraq was more receptive to female police officers. Jeff Glor reports.
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Photo Essay Baghdad Pet Bazaar Blasts Two female bombers strike in coordinated attack killing more than 70 people.
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
The civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the Iraqi capital, U.S. Navy Lt. Patrick Evans told The Associated Press. Three more civilians were wounded and taken to U.S. military hospitals nearby, he said.
Evans did not give details about exactly how the people were killed, but said the killings occurred as U.S. forces pursued suspected al Qaeda in Iraq militants in the area.
The incident and the events surrounding it are under investigation, he said.
Iraqi police said the victims, including two women, were in two houses in the village of Tal al-Samar, which was bombed by American warplanes late Saturday. They were all Sunni members of the al-Ghrir tribe, an officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.
The U.S. air strike came after an American convoy came under enemy fire in Tal al-Samar, and soldiers called for air support, the Iraqi officer said.
Shortly after the incident, American officers met with a Muslim sheik representing citizens in the area, Evans said.
"We offer our condolences to the families of those who were killed in this incident, and we mourn the loss of innocent civilian life," he said in a statement e-mailed to the AP.
Saturday's strike was the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in recent months.
In November, a leader of one of the so-called awakening councils - Sunni tribesmen allied with American forces, fighting to oust al Qaeda from their hometowns - said U.S. soldiers killed dozens of his fighters during a 12-hour battle north of Baghdad.
The leader, Mansour Abid Salim of the Taji Awakening Council, accused American troops of mistaking his men for militants. The U.S. military admitted killing 25 men, but said they were insurgents operating "in the target area" where al Qaeda was believed to be hiding.
The U.S. military investigated that incident, but the two versions of events were never reconciled.
A month later, the U.S. military said its forces accidentally killed two people during a raid in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, and that one of them was later revealed to be an awakening council member.
In other developments:
Meanwhile, a new study has found that U.S. military hospitals treated a significant number of wounded and sick children in the early years of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and military doctors say children keep arriving at their hospitals today.
With no true front line or battle zone, the war makes children especially vulnerable to stray bullets and other combat hazards, one study author said. And with Iraq's own medical system collapsing, families seek out the U.S. military to help their children with more conventional ailments.
"I took care of children burned from a kerosene heater, regular car accidents, other injuries secondary to the conflict itself," said study co-author Dr. Philip Spinella, who served as an Army doctor in Baghdad in 2004 and 2005.
Military doctors routinely treat children wounded by rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, said Spinella, who now works at Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford.
The study, published in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics, is based on Army hospital data from December 2001 to December 2004.
(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
At left, U.S. Army Capt. Kerri Mullen, Brigade Surgeon for 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, treats an Iraqi girl's burns Friday at a one day medical clinic in Beijia village in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad.
"The majority of our patients at any given time are Iraqi nationals," Air Force Maj. David Norton, who runs the intensive care unit there, said in an e-mail. "With respect to children in particular, we see far too many. Iraqi children, through no fault of their own, are forced to grow up quickly and are oftentimes the unfortunate victims of an adult world."
Army 1st Lt. Lee Jackson, a pediatric nurse at the Balad hospital, said in an e-mail that the ICU sometimes seems like a pediatric unit because of the number of children there. Neither Jackson nor Norton was involved in the study.
"We take great joy in the recovery of our pediatric patients and we grieve for each one that has a poor outcome," Jackson said.
The study found that almost 6 percent of the pediatric patients in military hospitals died, a death rate similar to that of adult non-U.S. coalition patients.
The researchers, all current or former military doctors, wanted to quantify what they had seen with their own eyes. Analyzing hospital data, they discovered children made up 4 percent of admissions and 10 percent of bed-days in U.S. military hospitals in the early years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
More than 1,000 children were admitted to U.S. military hospitals during the three-year study period.
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International Office for Migration
Caring for children generates enormous good will among the people of Iraq, Dr. Eaman Algobory, an Iraqi medical officer in Baghdad for the International Office for Migration, said in a telephone interview from Jordan.It's like an angel touched their heart.
Dr. Eaman Algobory,International Office for Migration
"It's like an angel touched their heart," Algobory said of the effect on Iraqis who have experienced the Army's medical care of children. "American soldiers in the field, if they see any child hurt, automatically they will try to protect them and evacuate them and try to save his life. This is well known in the street."
She was not involved in the new study, but has worked with Spinella and other military doctors to find care for children.
Few deployed doctors and nurses are pediatric specialists, but the U.S. Army Medical Command has adapted to what the study authors called "the increased load of pediatric patients."
The Army now offers pediatric trauma training to hospital staff before deployment and has added child-size equipment and liquid antibiotics to its supplies. Pediatric specialists are available by telephone.
"We've been able to overcome the difficulties," said Spinella, who added that the study and his comments do not reflect official military or government positions.
The researchers couldn't determine how many of the treated children had combat-related injuries, said study co-author Dr. Mark Burnett of Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, who served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 539 CommentsThe President is a Murderer!
And even these events we understand, we know about the corruption. The "national security" reasons were more "cover our behinds" reasons, this we know.
I say lets start demanding answers as to what our elected officials are going to do about it, and if that answer seems to be "nothing", then we answer amongst ourselves as to what we are going to do to force the politicians to serve our will.
.. There has been more propaganda & oposition to seek good answers, like the politicalization of our military & Generals, & the attacks on those who finally opened up.
Others are in total support of Isreal''s zionism & trade policies that have put a giant For Sale sign on our government & country''s security
Asking questions to which we already know the answers is unproductive, the questions we should be asking now are;
1. What do we have to do to get the impeachment proceedings started,
2. Same question for starting war crimes trials.
3. When do we nationalize our oil resources and refineries, and seize the assets of all the war profiteers who marked up and misappropriated the funding, and
4. What can we do after the above, to regain the trust of the international community?
1. Why did the administration oppose the creation of the 9/11 Commission
2. Why have they allowed Isreals attacks on Lebanon & Syria
3. Why have they been AWOL for 7 years in Isreal''s peace efforts
4. Why Iraq ??
5. Why so little progress in Iraq, & Afaganistan
6. Why policies that extend both conflicts
7. Why the shutdown of comittee''s for accountability & oversight
Recommended by the July 22, 2004, report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission), the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. It consists of five members appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the President.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/privacyboard
It''s a shell game & it was closed by Condi Rice, currently it has no members.
Posted by j-whitman at 11:51 PM : Feb 04, 2008
Oh hell, yes!!!!
2.. Globalization policies
3.. Defense contracts & private contracting, we have more civilian contractors than uniformed soldiers.
4.. Exposure of secrets involving cretion of Isreal
5.. Exposure of American support of Isreal''s Zionism one of the principle causes of Arab anger & terrorism
6.. Exposure of past policies which would further jepordize national security
7.. Exposure of republican foreign policies designed to start conflicts for long term American presence.
Posted by on_alert24
Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. -Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence.
"For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ''You''ll be noted in ''Q eidat il-Maaloomaat'' which meant ''You''ll be logged in the information database.'' Meaning ''You will receive a warning . . .'' If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ''Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.'' Meaning ''the decision database.'' It meant ''you will be punished.'' Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ''Q eidat ilmu''ti''aat'' which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for "base." The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ''q eidat ''riyadh al ''askariya.'' Q eida means "a base" and "Al Qaida" means "the base." For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ''Al Qaida.''
"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this."
Posted by j-whitman
Yup also.
j-whitman,
Re: "Anyone ever think it''s not in the administration''s intrest to end the War on Terror ??"
Yup.
OK, then my gas money funneled to Al Queda through Mobil/Exxon and Texaco the Saudi king...same difference...again, get real.
The convenience of Al Queda In Iraq is just a little too convenient and I suspect they''ll be operating until Bush/Cheney get their pipeline and oil contracts out of the Iraqi''s.
on_alert247,
Re: %u201CThis intelligence shows the breadth and span of international terrorism and anybody who thinks that the threat has either gone or is in abeyance is in cloud-cuckoo-land.%u201D
Agreed.
For one, the Bush regime is easily among the largest international terrorist networks of all time, as well as one of the most dangerous domestic enemies that our country has ever seen, and they are still at-large, and planning new ways to harm us.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3295299.ece
I like the last paragraph. It was written for FeelFree:
Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP who last year helped to prepare a report on terror threats to crowded places, said: %u201CThis intelligence shows the breadth and span of international terrorism and anybody who thinks that the threat has either gone or is in abeyance is in cloud-cuckoo-land.%u201D
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