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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (741750)	5/31/2006 11:53:02 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Bush vows to punish Haditha crime, Iraqis angry By Alastair Macdonald Wed May 31, 3:12 PM ET news.yahoo.com President George W. Bush vowed on Wednesday to punish any U.S. Marine guilty of shooting Iraqi civilians at Haditha but Iraqis, including the prime minister, complain that U.S. troops have killed elsewhere with impunity. "There is a thorough investigation going on. If ... laws were broken there will be punishment," Bush said in Washington. It was his first public comment on a scandal that some commentators are comparing to the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam that helped turn many Americans against that war. In the latest instance where Iraqis say U.S. forces have shed innocent blood, relatives and Iraqi police and army officers in Samarra, north of Baghdad, told Reuters U.S. troops killed three unarmed civilians, including a 60-year-old woman and a mentally handicapped man, in their home three weeks ago. A U.S. spokesman said only three guerrillas were killed. The Pentagon has limited comments on Haditha to anonymous briefings. Last week an official said charges including murder were possible following a military investigation into the deaths of 24 civilians in the violent western town of Haditha on November 19. An official repeated on Wednesday that an initial investigation found evidence Marines killed the civilians and that forensic reports of bullet wounds contradicted the troops' statements that 15 of the dead were killed by an insurgent bomb. Widespread leaks from U.S. lawmakers briefed on the case and from lawyers defending those under suspicion tend to back up accusations from Iraqis who say Marines shot dead 24 people in three houses and a car in a killing spree sparked by the death of a comrade in a roadside bombing during a dawn patrol. "IN COLD BLOOD" John Murtha, an opposition Democratic congressman and former Marine, said troops "killed innocent civilians in cold blood" and called Haditha a bigger setback to U.S. hopes for ensuring a friendly Iraq than the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2004. Iraqis themselves, inured to what they believe are routine American abuses, have reacted less. Though keen for an end to occupation, many see U.S. troops contributing to security. U.S. military officials admitted several months ago that no civilians were killed in the roadside bombing, as originally stated in a military statement. They have concurred with doctors at Haditha's hospital who told Reuters in March that they had signed death certificates saying all 24 were shot. One was a child of three. Survivors' testimonies and video provided by an Iraqi human rights organization indicate a few Marines went from house to house killing men, women and children. A human rights activist said U.S. lawmakers were shown photographs of some corpses indicating they were kneeling when shot. "They shot at all of us. I pretended I was dead," said Safa Younis, 12, the only one of her family of eight to survive, in a video provided to Reuters by the Hammurabi Human Rights group. Questions about a cover-up have focused on why Marines said civilians were killed by a bomb when Marine investigators had already photographed the scene on the day. Relatives of those other troops have told U.S. media they were traumatized by the experience of moving bodies, including a child shot in the head. Thaer al-Hadithi of the Hammurabi group told Reuters the U.S. military paid relatives $2,500 for 15 of the dead within "a few weeks." A U.S. officer told U.S. media this week he paid out $38,000. Other victims were considered enemy fighters. Hadithi said he believed payments were made before the U.S. military in Baghdad began to look into the incident in January, prompted by a local video handed to Time magazine reporters. PRIME MINISTER Three Marine officers, a lieutenant colonel and two captains, were relieved of command. U.S. media reports suggest a dozen Marines led by a sergeant face the most serious suspicions. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, keen to show Iraqis a leader in full control for the first time since Saddam Hussein, wants investigations into Haditha and other cases: "There is a limit to the acceptable excuses," he told Reuters on Tuesday. Iraq's new ambassador to Washington, Samir al-Sumaidaie, has complained that Marines killed his young cousin near Haditha last July and said on Tuesday he was not satisfied with a U.S. finding that he was killed in self-defence. He also said he believed U.S. troops had killed other civilians in the area. "It is absolutely imperative that we remove the bad apples and we expose them and we don't try to cover them up," he said. Iraqis have long complained that soldiers kill civilians in raids on rebels or at checkpoints. Police said two women, one pregnant, were shot dead by U.S. troops in Samarra on Tuesday. Rarer but not unknown are accusations that soldiers have killed wantonly. In March, the military said it was looking at police allegations U.S. soldiers killed 11 people, including five children, found bound in a house at Ishaqi, near Samarra. U.S. military spokesmen have been unable to give an answer this week as to the status of that investigation. John Sifton of Human Rights Watch said of the Haditha affair: "What would be a new phenomenon on the ground would be for Iraqis to see the U.S. really taking this seriously." (Additional reporting by Will Dunham and Caren Bohan in Washington) Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (741750)	5/31/2006 11:53:52 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Probe finds Haditha killings unprovoked By Will Dunham Wed May 31, 4:41 PM ET news.yahoo.com A preliminary military inquiry found evidence that U.S. Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked attack in November, contradicting the troops' account, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. President George W. Bush said he was troubled by news stories on the November 19 killings of men, women and children in the town of Haditha, and a general at the Pentagon said the incident could complicate the job for the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. "Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are borne out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of U.S. forces to continue to operate," Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, deputy director for regional operations for the military's Joint Staff, told a Pentagon briefing. Forensic data from corpses showed victims with bullet wounds, despite earlier statements by Marines that civilians were killed by a roadside bomb that also claimed the life of a Marine from El Paso, Texas, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, a defense official said. "The forensics painted a different story than what the Marines had said," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. The official said there were wounds that would not have been caused by an improvised explosive device. "Did someone shoot somebody just for the sake of taking him out?" the official said. "Bad things happened that day, and it appears Marines lied about it." "I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said at the White House. "I am mindful there is a thorough investigation going on. If in fact laws were broken there will be punishment." Residents of Haditha, 125 miles northwest of Baghdad in an area that has seen much activity by Sunni Arab insurgents, have told Reuters that Marines rampaged through houses and shot civilians after their patrol was hit by the roadside bomb. The incident could represent the worst-known case of misconduct by U.S. troops in Iraq, and comes at a time when opinion polls show falling U.S. public support for the 3-year-old war. Ham emphasized the importance of U.S. troops having the support of the Iraqi people and government. TWO INVESTIGATIONS There are two ongoing military investigations. A probe by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, responsible for cases involving Marines, might lead to charges including murder, officials said. A separate fact-finding inquiry involves whether Marines tried to cover up the true nature of the incident, officials said. The defense official said the investigations should be completed in mid-June. A preliminary inquiry was ordered in February only after Time magazine presented the U.S. military with information casting doubt on the official military version of the incident -- that civilians had been killed along with the one Marine by a roadside bomb. Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said he was "deeply disturbed" by the allegations, adding, "These accusations, if proven true, may rise to the level of war crimes." The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the initial investigation in February and March led by Army Col. Gregory Watt uncovered death certificates showing the civilians were shot mostly in the head and chest. The Times said Watt reviewed military payments totaling $38,000 to families of victims. In an interview with CNN, the new Iraqi ambassador to the United States, Samir al-Sumaidaie, said there appeared to have been other unnecessary killings of civilians by Marines in Haditha, where some of his family lives. Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.