Gustave,
One other thing.
"A U.S. patrol was surrounded by part of the crowd and one of the soldiers, fingering his rifle, told people to back off, "or I'm going to shoot you."
The quote from the soldier is a misquote. Intentional or not I don't know.
I am certain because this very incident was videotaped and showed up on the news here.
The Iraqis were marching loudly, but peacefully when they intersected with a small group of American soldiers who were patroling. Some of the members of the march began to approach the Americans. It wasn't clear why, but they came within a few feet of the Americans. Some of the marchers were shouting. The Americans, looking a bit nervous, persistently asked that they back off. One Iraqi woman in the crowd asked one soldier if he was going to shoot them and the soldier specificallly said, "no, I am not going to shoot anybody". All the American soldiers intentionally had the barrel of their rifles pointed downward. They're were some Iraqis in the crowd that put themselves in between the marchers and the soldiers and waved the marchers to back off a bit. The Americans were cautiously moving away from the scene when at some point Iraqi police officers arrived and escorted the Patrol away.
A non-incident really, but leave it to a misquotation to turn it into something else. |
