The Iraq thread 4

[billybob2002 0]

Hmm...It seems a female western was found disemboweled in Fallujah yesterday. Also, a number of foreigner fighters have been killed/captured in Fallujah so far. Mosques have been used by insurgents for firebases. A bomb factory had been found by US/Iraqi forces. Hostages have been found and it seems the two French people were there at some point in the city. House(s) have been found in which beheadings have likely taken place in. Nice resistance city, no?

[billybob2002 0]

Another piece of intel...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004....f=login

Quote[/b] ]

OP-ED COLUMNIST

U.N. Obstructs Justice

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: November 15, 2004

Washington — "I'm angry that we find the U.N. proactively interfering with our investigation," Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, informed Lou Dobbs on CNN, "by telling certain folks not to cooperate with us." He repeated for emphasis his sharp response to Secretary General Kofi Annan's "interfering with our ability to get information we need" about the oil-for-food scandal.

Judith Miller of The Times had revealed that the Minnesota Republican, joined by ranking Democrat Carl Levin, sent a letter noting Annan's four-month foot-dragging and that "the U.N. is hindering our efforts to obtain relevant documents."

If legislative investigators were prosecutors, the name of the game Annan and his enablers are playing would be called "obstruction of justice."

The principal investigating body of the Senate is not helpless. Today witnesses from Treasury and C.I.A., as well as its own investigators, will present evidence that the huge rip-off engineered by Saddam Hussein - with the connivance of corrupt U.N. officials and companies protected by Security Council members like Russia and France - was even greater than the $10 billion figure estimated by our G.A.O. Going back to 1991 and including the predecessor to oil-for-food, an outside source tells me that the U.N.-maladministered profiteering reached $23 billion. Such heavy spending affects U.N. votes.

The Senate, as it returns to lame-duck work this week, will subpoena evidence through the U. S. connections of companies like Lloyd's Register Inspection Ltd., which Annan's consultant, Paul Volcker, has so far "proactively" kept from cooperating. And there is the budget option: if the U.N. persists in obstruction, the U.S. can re-examine its contribution to an unaccountable organization.

But the Congress is not dependent on one Senate committee alone. In the House, Henry Hyde's International Relations Committee is holding hearings Wednesday. Though there will be overlap - Charles Duelfer will be busy explicating the oil-for-food section of his C.I.A. report this week - its emphasis has been on following the illicit money through the banking system.

BNP Paribas, the European bank eager to expand in the U.S., has cooperated with "friendly subpoenas" that Annan's aides could not stop through their "gag letters"; its present and past officials will testify about its thousands of letters of credit. But what about "know your customer" rules? What did our Federal Reserve officials know about sloppy banking procedures, and how long did it take for those regulators to put suspect banks under supervising action? The Fed's Herbert Biern may have some explaining to do about the failure of financial and diplomatic oversight.

If the U.N. stonewalling continues this week, Chairman Hyde's patience could at last wear thin; as former chairman of Judiciary, he knows something about criminal referrals. Such an action directed at recalcitrant bankers, brokers or U.N. inspection contractors would at last get high-level attention at the Justice Department, where U.S. attorneys have been tediously poking around U.S. oil companies for leads on kickbacks.

Kofi Annan's longtime right-hand man, Benon Sevan, headed the U.N.'s Office of the Iraq Program; he has been retired but has been vociferously denying wrongdoing ever since his name appeared on a list of beneficiaries of Saddam's largesse in the form of vouchers for oil deals.

Annan's obstruction of outside investigations has strong support within the U.N. members whose citizens are most likely to be embarrassed by revelations of payoffs: Russia, France and China lead all the rest. He has dutifully continued to align himself with their interests by declaring the overthrow of Saddam "illegal" and recently denouncing our attack on the insurgents in Falluja. Perhaps he thinks that this confluence of national interest in cover-up - along with the unwillingness of most media to dig into a complicated story - will let his stonewalling succeed. He reckons not with an insulted Congress.

Sad to see is the secretary general's manipulative abuse of Paul Volcker. Here is a former central banker so confident of his hard-earned reputation for integrity that he cannot see how it is being shredded by a web of sticky-fingered officials and see-no-evil bureaucrats desperate to protect the man on top who hired him to substitute for - and thereby to abort - prompt and truly independent investigation.

[billybob2002 0]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2....printer

Quote[/b] ]

Oil-for-Food Official May Have Blocked Inquiries

Head of U.N. Program in Iraq Accused of Improperly Accepting Purchasing Rights

By Colum Lynch

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page A26

UNITED NATIONS -- Benon Sevan, the official accused of improperly receiving lucrative rights to purchase oil from Saddam Hussein's government while he was running the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, discouraged his staff from probing allegations of corruption and helped block efforts by the U.N. anti-corruption unit to assess where the program was vulnerable to abuse, according to senior U.N. officials.

Sevan said that such an assessment would prove too costly and that U.N. member governments bore primary responsibility for policing the program, according to senior U.N. officials and other former program members. He did initiate reviews of possible overcharging on some program contracts, reviews on which the U.N. Security Council took no action.

The disclosures, drawn from interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.N. officials and diplomats, follow a report last month by the top U.S. weapons inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, that Hussein personally approved the allocation of vouchers to Sevan, among about 270 other officials and businessmen, to sell millions of barrels of Iraqi crude at a profit of 10 cents to 35 cents a barrel.

Evidence that Hussein used the program to raise illicit billions and erode economic sanctions emerged over years, drawing strong criticism of the United Nations from U.S. legislators and conservative groups. The new disclosures provide a view into how the United Nations limited scrutiny of the program from within.

China, France, Russia, Syria and other governments, which represented companies competing for billions of dollars' worth of business, stalled measures aimed at ending corruption, U.S. Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy, who tracked the program for more than three years, told a House subcommittee last month.

The U.N. Security Council established the oil-for-food program to address the humanitarian impact of economic sanctions against Iraq by allowing the country to sell oil so it could purchase food, medications and other essentials. It oversaw the export of $64 billion worth of Iraqi oil between December 1996 and November 2003. Sevan's policy took shape in late 2000, just as Hussein's government stepped up its efforts to siphon money from the program by requiring companies to pay kickbacks for the privilege of purchasing Iraqi oil or selling goods to the government.

Sevan declined to be interviewed for this article. In an e-mail to friends, he said he was the target of an "intense smear campaign" by groups seeking to discredit the United Nations and prevent it from returning to Iraq. He defended the program as making "a real difference in the daily lives of the average Iraqi people."

After Hussein's government fell in April 2003, evidence of corruption in the program spurred investigations in Baghdad, Washington and New York. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to investigate allegations that U.N. officials, including Sevan, and foreign companies received illegal payoffs. That investigation continues.

During his tenure, which ran from October 1997 to November 2003, Sevan, a Cypriot, opposed some internal efforts to review the program and issued written instructions to employees who had received tips about illegal payoffs to tell whistleblowers to make formal complaints to their governments. The gist of Sevan's orders was, "We can't act on telephone conversations. They should put it in writing and go to their government," according to a U.N. official who served under Sevan and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The whistleblowers demurred, noting that Iraq could retaliate by barring their companies from future business.

Sevan also disagreed with an effort in late 2000 by the U.N. corruption watchdog, Dileep Nair, to submit the program to a major vulnerability assessment, saying that at a cost of nearly $50 million it would be too expensive, according to two U.N. officials and a senior diplomat.

Sevan was backed by the U.N. deputy secretary general, Louise Frechette. Both Nair and Frechette declined to comment for this article, citing concern that their public remarks might interfere with Volcker's investigation. A U.N. source familiar with Frechette's position said she believed it would be overstepping his role for Nair to oversee a management assessment while he was probing the program for signs of abuse.

Edward Mortimer, U.N. communication chief, said the world body may have deferred too much to the concerns of powerful member states. "Maybe we should have treated it more as a straightforward managerial problem, but we treated it as a very sensitive political matter where we were anxious not to offend the sensibilities of any important member of the Security Council," he said.

Toward the end of July 2000, U.N. officials began receiving tips from Iraq's commercial partners that the Hussein government was demanding kickbacks, according to three U.N. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. In December 2000, one company told U.N. oil experts that Iraq had demanded an illegal surcharge of 50 cents on each barrel of oil, according to the U.N. official who served under Sevan. Shortly thereafter, the tips became the subject of Security Council meetings.

Representatives from about half a dozen other companies that traded with Iraq informed U.N. officials that Iraq was forcing them to pay illegal commissions into a secret bank account for the purchase of food, medicine and humanitarian goods, according to two U.N. officials who worked for Sevan. "The chatter was that the regime was asking suppliers to agree to sign contracts with a percentage going to another account," one of the officials said.

Sevan was reluctant to embark on an anti-corruption effort because it would complicate his relations with Iraq, whose cooperation was essential to the program's success, several U.N. officials believed. He was also loath to antagonize key Security Council members, particularly Russia, which routinely opposed efforts to reform a multibillion-dollar program that served its political and economic interests.

"He used to say, 'I have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis,' " a senior U.N. official said, referring to the two sea monsters in Greek mythology who tormented Odysseus and his crew.

Several U.N. officials, echoing Sevan's view, said they could not investigate crimes committed in their programs without far more resources and a specific mandate from the Security Council. Only in rare cases in which irrefutable evidence of abuses existed would they formally present the council with an allegation of corruption.

In one case frequently cited by U.N. officials as evidence of their commitment to fighting corruption, Sevan told the council's sanctions committee in October 2001 that the Greek captain of the oil tanker Essex admitted conspiring with Iraq to smuggle $10 million worth of crude oil. Sevan's briefing was arranged after Capt. Chiladakis Theofanis provided a written account of the scheme to both the United States and the United Nations. "If we got something which was so clear as the Essex case, we had no choice" but to bring it to the sanctions committee's attention, said Michel Tellings, one of three U.N. officials who oversaw Iraqi oil sales. But "we did not feel we had a mandate to go and investigate."

Although Sevan declined to pursue allegations of corruption, he took some action to address the problem, ordering a study of Iraqi imports to determine whether the costs were inflated. The report, which has not been released, was "inconclusive," according to the official who served under Sevan. In September 2003, a Pentagon study of 759 contracts valued at $6.9 billion showed "potential overpricing" by as much as $656 million.

Sevan also instructed U.N. customs experts to review individual contracts to determine whether the prices were "abnormally high" -- a move that was aimed at flagging possible wrongdoing to the council, several U.N. officials said.

Over the next 18 months, U.N. officials presented the sanctions committee with 70 contracts that were potentially overpriced, Mortimer said. But "nobody placed a single contract on hold," he said -- including the United States and Britain, Baghdad's toughest critics on the Security Council. He said Sevan's office "did its job by doing some investigation and informing the committee of its doubts."

U.S. and U.N. officials acknowledge that by allowing Hussein's government to negotiate contracts directly with thousands of foreign companies, the Security Council provided wide scope for abuses in the program. The council's decision-making process, which requires consensus among all its 15 members, made it difficult to impose anti-corruption reforms, U.S. and U.N. officials said.

"Any plan that would have denied the authority of the Iraqi government to select its own purchasers of Iraqi oil and suppliers of humanitarian products would have been rejected by a number of key Security Council member states," Kennedy told Congress.

[theavonlady 2]

Are we looking at a possible humanitarion catastrophy?

You've been looking at it all this time and ignoring it.

Quote[/b] ]Mujahidin terrorised Fallujah, residents say

By Times Online and AFP in Fallujah

Mutilated bodies dumped on Fallujah's bombed out streets today painted a harrowing picture of eight months of rebel rule.

As US and Iraqi troops mopped up the last vestiges of resistance in the city after a week of bombardment and fighting, residents who stayed on through last week's offensive were emerging and telling harrowing tales of the brutality they endured.

Flyposters still litter the walls bearing all manner of decrees from insurgent commanders, to be heeded on pain of death. Amid the rubble of the main shopping street, one decree bearing the insurgents' insignia - two Kalashnikovs propped together - and dated November 1 gives vendors three days to remove nine market stalls from outside the city's library or face execution.

The pretext given is that the rebels wanted to convert the building into a headquarters for the "Mujahidin Advisory Council" through which they ran the city.

Another poster in the ruins of the souk bears testament to the strict brand of Sunni Islam imposed by the council, fronted by hardline cleric Abdullah Junabi. The decree warns all women that they must cover up from head to toe outdoors, or face execution by the armed militants who controlled the streets.

Two female bodies found yesterday suggest such threats were far from idle. An Arab woman, in a violet nightdress, lay in a post-mortem embrace with a male corpse in the middle of the street. Both bodies had died from bullets to the head.

Just six metres away on the same street lay the decomposing corpse of a blonde-haired white woman, too disfigured for swift identification but presumed to be the body of one of the many foreign hostages kidnapped by the rebels.

It was initially thought to be either the body of Margaret Hassan, the Dublin-born aid worker with dual British and Iraqi nationality who was kidnapped last month, or a Polish woman kidnapped two weeks ago. A Polish official said today there was no evidence to suggest that the body was that of the kidnapped Pole.

Although the US military says it is now in control of the Sunni Muslim city, US forces were today attacking diehard rebel positions in the south of Fallujah, including an underground bunker complex of steel-reinforced tunnels containing weapons including an anti-aircraft artillery gun.

"What you’re seeing now are some of the hardliners, they seem to be better equipped than some of the earlier ones, we’ve seen flak jackets on some of them," Major General Richard Natonski, the Marine general who commanded the Fallujah offensive, told the BBC.

"I think they’re probably willing to lay down their lives in the fight. But we’re more determined and we’re going to wipe them out," he said.

The Iraqi Red Crescent today abandoned plans to take an aid convoy into the city after being refused entry by US forces who deny that there is any humanitarian emergency. The seven-truck convoy was instead heading to nearby villages, where tens of thousands of refugees from Fallujah are camped out.

Meanwhile International Red Cross spokesman today claimed that in the hours before the attack began, US troops had been preventing Iraqi males of military age from leaving Fallujah. Ahmed Ravi told the ITV News Channel: "There are still civilians inside Fallujah who are in serious need for any kind of help. Also, the water treatment plan, under control of Iraqi and American troops, is not functioning right now."

At least 38 US soldiers, five Iraqi soldiers and 1,200 insurgents are thought to have been killed during the week-long offensive, but civilian casualties are unclear - except for an implausible denial from Iyad Allawi, the acting Iraqi Prime Minister, that there are any.

Witness accounts appeared to contradict him. A member of an Iraqi relief committee told al-Jazeera television he saw 22 bodies buried in rubble in Fallujah’s northern Jolan district yesterday.

"Of the 22 bodies, five were found in one house as well as two children whose ages did not exceed 15 and a man with an artificial leg," Mohammed Farhan Awad said."Some of the bodies we found had been eaten by stray dogs and cats. It was a very painful sight."

A source close to Dr Allawi said this morning that two of the Prime Minister's female relatives abducted last week were freed last night. But Dr Allawi's 75-year-old cousin was still being held.

A previously unknown rebel group last week threatened to behead Dr Allawi's cousin, his wife and their heavily pregnant daughter-in-law unless the assault on Fallujah was stopped.

Such is the fear that the heavily armed militants held over Fallujah that many of the residents who emerged from the ruins welcomed the US marines, despite the massive destruction their firepower had inflicted on their city.

A man in his sixties, half-naked and his underwear stained with blood from shrapnel wounds from a US munition, cursed the insurgents as he greeted the advancing marines on Saturday night.

"I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months," he said, trembling. Nearby, a mosque courtyard had been used as a weapons store by the militants.

Another elderly man, who did not want his name used for fear the rebels would one day return and restore their draconian rule, said he was detained by the militants last Tuesday and held for four days before being freed. He described how he had then sought refuge in a friend's house where they had huddled together clutching Korans in silent prayer for their lives as the massive US bombardment put the insurgents to flight.

"It was horrible," he told an AFP reporter."We suffered from the bombings. Innocent people died or were wounded by the bombings.

"But we were happy you did what you did because Fallujah had been suffocated by the Mujahidin. Anyone considered suspicious would be slaughtered. We would see unknown corpses around the city all the time."

The same story of arbitrary executions was told by another resident, found by US troops cowering in his home with his brother and his family.

"They would wear black masks, carry rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs, and search streets and alleys," said Iyad Assam, 24. "I would hear stories, about how they executed five men one day and seven another for collaborating with the Americans. They made checkpoints on the roads. They put announcements on walls banning music and telling women to wear the veil from head to toe."

It was not just pedlars of alcohol or Western videos and women deemed improperly dressed who faced the militants' wrath. Even residents who regard themselves as observant Muslims lived in fear because they did not share the puritan brand of Sunni Islam that the insurgents enforced.

One devotee of a Sufi sect, followers of a mystical form of worship deemed herectical by the hardliners, told how he and other members of his order had lived in terror inside their homes for fear of retribution.

"It was a very hard life. We couldn't move. We could not work," said the man sporting the white robe and skullcap prescribed by his faith. "If they had any issue with a person, they would kill him or throw him in jail."

Oh, noble resistance fighters!

[billybob2002 0]

I'm rich, bitch!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....robe_dc

Quote[/b] ]

Saddam Got $21 Billion from UN Oil Program -U.S. Panel

59 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters

By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and smuggling before and during the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food program, twice as much as previous estimates, according to a U.S. Senate probe on Monday.

The monies flowed between 1991 and 2003 through oil surcharges, kickbacks on civilian goods and smuggling directly to willing governments, Senate investigators said at a hearing.

"How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling?" asked Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), head of the investigations subcommittee.

Coleman made public more documents he said were evidence of bigger kickbacks and payments than what was previously known, including 2003 data previously not reviewed.

The new Senate figure is about double the amount estimated by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which had pegged it at $10.1 billion. Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq (news - web sites), had estimated about the same amount based on Iraqi documents, with $2 billion through the U.N. program and $8 billion in smuggling by road or sea or in direct illegal agreements with governments.

The oil-for-food program began in December 1996 to alleviate the impact on ordinary Iraqis of sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The U.N. Security Council allowed Iraq to sell oil and buy food, medicine and other goods and let Baghdad draw up its own contracts.

This left room for abuse in the $64 billion program, administered by the United Nations (news - web sites) and monitored by a U.N. Security Council panel, including the United States, according to investigators.

Oil smuggling alone netted Saddam's regime about $9.7 billion, with other funds flowing from switching substandard goods with top-grade ones, as well as exploiting food and medicine shipments to the Kurds in Iraq's north.

Panel investigators also echoed the findings by Duelfer, head of the CIA (news - web sites)-led Iraq Survey Group, that Saddam's regime gave lucrative contracts to buy Iraqi oil to high-ranking officials in Russia, France and other nations.

On the list of 270 individuals, businesses and political parties was the head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, who has vigorously denied the charges.

Other recipients include Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Russian Liberal Democrat Party. The Senate panel released a document signed by Zhirinovsky in January 1999 that invited a U.S. oil company to Moscow to negotiate to buy the oil voucher. The name of the U.S. company was withheld because of pending investigations, panel staff said.

In Russian press statements, Zhirinovsky has denied taking bribes from Saddam's regime, though he admitted meeting with the former Iraqi president during trips to Baghdad.

Senior Iraqi officials like former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz were also personally involved in oil talks, Senate panel investigators said.

In each case, Saddam's regime awarded a certificate that allowed the holder to sell the right to buy Iraqi oil at below-market prices.

The certificate holder would charge a per-barrel commission to transfer the rights to an oil buyer. Per-barrel fees were usually less than $1 per barrel but racked up big dollar amounts because allocations upward of 1 million barrels were routine.

The United Nations has refused to hand over documents to a U.S. congressional committee or allow Sevan to appear before a panel while its own investigation is under way, led by Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve (news - web sites) chairman.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York that Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) had telephoned Coleman and Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, "to assure them we are not being obstructionist" following an angry letter last week from the two senators.

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and smuggling before and during the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food program.

Eh, what's the point of even mentioning the OFF program. It's like saying:

"Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and smuggling before and during the Bush presidency."

--

It's a funny thing, the US guilt. The (flawed) logic at play seems to be "if we can prove that there was corruption in the UN, that would make them the bad guys. If they're the bad guys, then we who unlike them supported the war must be good guys"

And of course, in their guilt, they make the leap of equating the killing of tens of thousands civilians to some guy economically ripping off the system.

Furthermore, the OFF program has been investigated over and over again, from all sides, by different organizations and they have yet to find any evidence of corruption. This is quite impressive. With any organization that deals with that kind of money, you can be more or less certain of corruption - yet in the case of the OFF, none has been found.

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

Combat in Fallujah (You cant see anything though you know what they are shooting at, if this is against the rules plz delete)

[billybob2002 0]

Combat in Fallujah (You cant see anything though you know what they are shooting at, if this is against the rules plz delete)

That link has already been posted by somebody else.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]--

It's a funny thing, the US guilt. The (flawed) logic at play seems to be "if we can prove that there was corruption in the UN, that would make them the bad guys. If they're the bad guys, then we who unlike them supported the war must be good guys"

And of course, in their guilt, they make the leap of equating the killing of tens of thousands civilians to some guy economically ripping off the system.

Furthermore, the OFF program has been investigated over and over again, from all sides, by different organizations and they have yet to find any evidence of corruption. This is quite impressive. With any organization that deals with that kind of money, you can be more or less certain of corruption - yet in the case of the OFF, none has been found.

Senator Carl Levin- Iraq plan

http://levin.senate.gov/senate/statement.cfm?id=211525

Do not run off with the anti-un crap..

[Blake 0]

There was footage just few minutes ago in BBC World filmed by NBC reporter of US Marines walking into Mosque and shooting to the head apparently unarmed, badly wounded insurgent leaning against the wall. The impact on his head was blacked out from the film but one can imagine what it looked like. Not exactly stuff what wins 'hearts and minds' regardless what kind of murderers those insurgents may be...

BTW. the building/Mosque looks the same as in that Falluja-video which is pounded by M2 Bradley at the end. And the Marine who shot the guy in the head was wounded in the face but returned to service, could he be the guy whose face is being inspected by medic in the same video? Just speculation.

[ralphwiggum 6]

.

http://cache.gettyimages.com/comp....B114CE8

am I theonly one thinking that this is a good representation of idiocy? it took 8 months to get to this point, and as far as TBA says, everything is ok, as it should be...and the original triggerman is not known, let alone caught.

[ralphwiggum 6]

There was footage just few minutes ago in BBC World filmed by NBC reporter of US Marines walking into Mosque and shooting to the head apparently unarmed, badly wounded insurgent leaning against the wall. The impact on his head was blacked out from the film but one can imagine what it looked like. Not exactly stuff what wins 'hearts and minds' regardless what kind of murderers those insurgents may be...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/15/marine.probe/index.html

Quote[/b] ]FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military is investigating whether a Marine shot dead an unarmed, wounded insurgent during the battle for Falluja in an incident captured on videotape by a pool reporter.

The man was shot in the head at close range Saturday by a Marine who found him among a group of wounded men. The wounded men were found in a mosque that Marines said had been the source of small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire the previous day.

The Marine in the videotape has been removed from his unit and taken to the headquarters of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, and the Navy's Criminal Investigative Service said it plans to question one of the other wounded Iraqis as part of the probe, according to the pool reporter embedded with the unit.

The Marine seen shooting the man was part of a squad from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which had been part of intense house-to-house fighting in southern Falluja.

U.S. rules of engagement prohibit American troops from killing any prisoner who does not pose a threat.

Quote[/b] ]Friday, the Marines were fired upon by snipers and insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades from a mosque and an adjacent building. The Marines returned fire with tank shells and machine guns.

They eventually stormed the mosque, killing 10 insurgents and wounding five others, and showing off a cache of rifles and grenades for journalists.

The Marines told the pool reporter that the wounded men would be left behind for others to pick up and move to the rear for treatment. But Saturday, another squad of Marines found that the mosque had been reoccupied by insurgents and attacked it again, only to find the same wounded men inside.

Four of the men appeared to have been shot again in Saturday's fighting. Two were lying against the wall bleeding heavily, one appeared to be dead and a fourth was severely wounded but still breathing, according to the pool report.

A Marine approached one of the men in the mosque saying, "He's [expletive] faking he's dead. He's faking he's [expletive] dead."

The Marine raised his rifle and fired into the apparently wounded man's head, at which point a companion said, "Well, he's dead now."

When told by the pool reporter that the men were among those wounded in Friday's firefight, the Marine who fired the shot said, "I didn't know, sir. I didn't know."

The Marines said they are investigating why the wounded Iraqis were left behind for 24 hours and whether the man was killed illegally. Navy investigators said they believe they have located the fifth Iraqi -- the only one not wounded a second time -- who said he wanted provide information about the killing.

Before the Marines entered the mosque Saturday, a lieutenant from one of two squads involved in the fighting was told that there were people inside.

"Did you shoot them?" he asked.

"Roger that, sir," one of his men replied.

"Were they armed?" the lieutenant asked. The other Marine shrugged.

The Marine who shot the Iraqi man had reportedly been returned to duty after suffering a minor facial wound Friday.

Quote[/b] ]Amnesty also noted reports that insurgents have used mosques as fighting positions, and in one incident appear to have used a white flag to lure Marines into an ambush.

[Baphomet 0]

Quote[/b] ]Oh, noble resistance fighters!

Thats no different than making sweeping generalisations about american soldiers in vietnam.

Quote[/b] ]Hussein moved from house to house - dodging gunfire - and reached the river.

``I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river.''

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he ``helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands.''

``I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards.''

In my opinion both are just as bad. So yeah. I'd say the situation for civilians is pretty catastrophic there.

People fighting to save you from murderous extremists by killing innocent people fording a river from a helicopter is a bit counter productive. Sure however, if there are any people left. I'm totally sure they'll be grateful they weren't mistakenly blown away.

Not.

article here

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Thats no different than making sweeping generalisations about american soldiers in vietnam.

The fallujah "resistance" say there were no outsiders in their town and they are in complete control. Talking about the fallujah "resistance" here folks.... the model "resistance".

Quote[/b] ]In my opinion both are just as bad. So yeah. I'd say the situation for civilians is pretty catastrophic there.

People fighting to save you from murderous extremists by killing innocent people fording a river from a helicopter is a bit counter productive. Sure however, if there are any people left. I'm totally sure they'll be grateful they weren't mistakenly blown away.

Not.

Hate to be ass but there are checkpoints for them to enter/exit Fallujah. Swimming acroos a river without coalition/iraqi forces knowing who you are is dangerous to your health.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Hate to be ass but there are checkpoints for them to enter/exit Fallujah. Swimming acroos a river without coalition/iraqi forces knowing who you are is dangerous to your health.

The same sort of checkpoints that shoot up private cars and ambulances, like they did for the first few months after the war

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]The same sort of checkpoints that shoot up private cars and ambulances, like they did for the first few months after the war

Hey, a large funeral was allowed out of Fallujah during the initial part of this battle.

[Baphomet 0]

Does it seem just a bit unreasonable to assume that there's a difference between the movement characteristics of a fleeing family and a group of routed insurgents? I don't think so.

Furthermore they were trying to swim across the euphrates, desperate to get away from the american's indiscriminant blasting of homes only to get shot while in the water. That's just the ultimate in absurdity in my opinion. Being in a helicopter, one would have an excellent opportunity to assess, with relative safety if the people who are helpessly trying to cross a river are insurgents or a family with small children. Same thing goes for snipers. It's their job to engage targets at a long range. This again. Affording them the ability to determine if those individuals trying to keep buoyant are hostile or not.

Quote[/b] ]Hey, a large funeral was allowed out of Fallujah during the initial part of this battle.

I could see that as if it was a large civilian procession of any type it seems to me that it would look extremely bad and obvious that they were being indiscriminant about who they were shooting over there.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Furthermore they were trying to swim across the euphrates, desperate to get away from the american's indiscriminant blasting of homes only to get shot while in the water. That's just the ultimate in absurdity in my opinion. Being in a helicopter, one would have an excellent opportunity to assess, with relative safety if the people who are helpessly trying to cross a river are insurgents or a family with small children. Same thing goes for snipers. It's their job to engage targets at a long range. This again. Affording them the ability to determine if those individuals trying to keep buoyant are hostile or not.

First, how did Hussien see those snipers? For the helicopter, what was their distance to the ground?

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

nice footage there of the execution. Proud of your boys? Sure they are still in control over themselves, no Vietnam syndrom yet?

[quicksand 0]

Quote[/b] ]Hate to be ass but there are checkpoints for them to enter/exit Fallujah. Swimming acroos a river without coalition/iraqi forces knowing who you are is dangerous to your health.

The only problem is that any man between 15 and 70 is not allowed to leave the city as he is a military age man.Secondly any man on the streets are to be shot on sight.

So basicly grandpa and nephew are screwed and daddy-he might as well pick up an AK as he would be shot on sight anyway if he ventures on the streets or starve to death and crave for clean water if he stays in his home.

[kerosene 0]

I saw that video yesterday, of the Marine shooting over a wall and you hear him say, "hes done."

But theres a much more graphic video been floating round on the internet for a while of something very similiar.

One of the most baffling things I heard was a U.S officer talking about Falluja returning to normal and people going back to work and stuff, their gonna be in for a shock when they see the state of the town. Channel 4 news showed very brief clips of what looked like civilians who'd been killed in their homes by indirect/indiscriminate fire. I dont really think making large numbers of people homeless/destitute is going to improve the situation.

The "no-males of fighting age can leave" thing has been going on for a while, and not everyone who stays is planning on riding out the storm. Theres the old, the sick, etc.

I hope more satellite pictures of the city we'll be released, I looked at that one that was put earlier, hopefully they'll be a post battle shot released too.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

What do you expect, kind of silly to send Marines on a humanitarian mission to teach the values of democracy. Faludja is fucked up. The people are frightened and civillians have suffered in great numbers. Noone seems to worry. killing children or just people that look like civillians is the american idea of "preemptive strike" well you never know, could be a terorist

They were taught about the evil doers hijacking Iraq but they see that those fighters are capable to sympathise with the population. So like in Vietnam the enemy is not easy to recognise. They all look the same, quite a challenging for a person who was thought "not to think, trust your weapon, Marine!"

Watching the footages that recently came out of Iraq it appears to me that those soldiers have lost grip with reality. Lots of Macho slogans, lots of inhumane perspectives. Texan Cowboys that can aim at civillians just because it "might" be a terorist. But the worst is, noone of their comrades would ask "what have you done?".

Nothing left of the idea of cheering Iraqis that joyfully shout "hello Mister, hello Mister".

But we all know the beautiful parades that are going to be organised for the returning heros that protected homeland security far away in Iraq. That fought for democracy and the liberty of the iraqi people. What a fucking yoke!

Not blaming them. Most of these soldiers are not old enough to control and stabilise their character. Their education is limited to Fox and some few years no-show at school.

How are they supposed to understand or digest what they are doing there. Naives Frontfutter!

I am not amused.

[bn880 5]

Well personally, after following this for a long time now, and after seeing/hearing from Fal. I am really upset at the state of things, and I am surprised at how cowardly so many "semper fuxxors" are. If you would be a man, you would say no to doing all that shit in a civilian area.

I think there are way too many pussies in the US military to be man enough to say no to this kind of thing.

Out.

[denoir 0]

It's hardly surprising. That's what you get for starting a war on highly questionable grounds. There is very little higher purpose, very few believable "noble" goals - there's just the enemy.

[bn880 5]

I know it is not very surprising, as with what happens in Chechnya, but it has been getting to me, I don't know what I would be feeling if I was the citizen of the US as I am already quite upset; I am very glad that so far Canadians do not support any of this, at least a majority... I think I would just have to leave then, I'm not sure.

I am sorry if some of the harsh words offend you, but you are a victim if your tax dollars go to this, and you are a victim if you "blow away" civilians or others in Iraq. I can only imagine all the PTSD sufferers there will be in the years to come, I think many soldiers in Iraq are making the mistakes of their life.

That is my view on it right now, and I do have enough information to have feelings on this....