February 11, 2009 3:29 PM
- Text
U.S. Accidentally Kills 9 Iraqi Civilians
(CBS/AP)
The U.S. military said Monday that it accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al Qaeda in Iraq south of Baghdad.
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:
Turkish warplanes on Monday bombed some 70 Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, the military said. It was the fifth aerial attack against Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq in two months.
The U.S. military said Sunday a soldier had been killed Thursday in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Baghdad, raising to at least 40 the number of troop deaths reported in January, nearly double the 23 recorded in December and the largest monthly toll for the Americans since 65 in September. A U.S. soldier also died of non-combat causes in Ninevah province in northern Iraq. At least 3,945 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Iraq's presidency council issued a law Sunday that will allow thousands of Saddam Hussein-era officials to return to government jobs, legislation viewed by the Bush administration as central to mending deep fissures between minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds and the majority Shiites who now wield power.
Four Iraqis working with a U.S.-backed neighborhood watch group were found shot to death Sunday in their safe house in Baqouba, the U.S. military said. A powerful roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, also struck a U.S. military vehicle on a route clearance mission Wednesday in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Sunday. The attack caused no casualties but was the 12th attack on the Army's 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division in January - the highest monthly number of EFP attacks against the brigade over the past year, the military said.
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.
The situation has not changed, though. On Friday, two young Iraqi burn victims and a young Iraqi boy who underwent three surgeries for abdominal injuries and a leg amputation were being treated at the busy Air Force Theater Hospital at the U.S. air base in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad.
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.
"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.
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.
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," 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.
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