U.S. soldiers at a vehicle checkpoint in the city of Ramadi, June 20, 2006. (Cpl. Joseph DiGirolamo/U.S. Marine Corps/Handout/Reuters)This is off The New York Times:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 30--The United States military said Friday that it was investigating whether American soldiers had killed a family of four Iraqi civilians in March in their home south of Baghdad, adding another inquiry to a growing list of cases where Americans are accused of fatally shooting unarmed Iraqis.
The investigation is being overseen by the highest levels of the American command, and was ordered by the general commanding the Fourth Infantry Division, which is assigned to control the capital and areas immediately to the south, a military spokesman said.
The shooting incident took place March 12 in the volatile market town of Mahmudiya, an insurgent stronghold about 20 miles from Baghdad.
The Associated Press reported today that the investigation involved five soldiers from a unit of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, which was attached to the Fourth Division command while operating in the area, though it is formally part of a different division, the 101st Airborne.
Early reports indicate that soldiers may have raped a woman, burned her body and killed the woman's family, the news agency reported, citing an unnamed American official. The A.P. recently had a reporter embedded with the 502nd Infantry Regiment.
Earlier this month, two soldiers from the same unit were abducted while guarding a traffic control point in the town of Yusufiya, and were killed by insurgents. Their mutilated bodies were found along a booby-trapped road, after the American military deployed 8,000 American and Iraqi troops into the area in a search-and-rescue operation that was perhaps the largest of the war so far. A third soldier was killed in Yusufiya at the time of the ambush.
Though it appears the killing of the Iraqi family was unrelated to the Yusifya ambush, the March incident came to light when a soldier felt compelled to report it after the discovery of the bodies of his kidnapped comrades, the Associated Press reported. One soldier has been arrested, and four have had their weapons taken away and are confined to their base in Mahmudiya.
I really don't know what to say about this incident. We have five U.S. soldiers who raped an Iraqi woman, burned her body, and then killed her family. As revenge for this crime, the Iraqi insurgency kidnapped and brutally killed two soldiers from the same unit that was involved in this rape and murder incident. Tit for tat. The real problem here is that the American occupation forces in Iraq are facing a low-tech insurgency being waged by the Iraqi population. These American soldiers cannot identify who is a friend or foe in this war. As a result, everyone becomes a potential enemy target--whether they are or not. It is only a matter of time before we start seeing more of these incidents of American soldiers killing Iraqi civilians, causing even greater anger and resistance among the Iraqi population. Violence begets violence. Consider this from the Times:
This latest investigation comes at a time of increasing scrutiny over the killings of civilians by American troops in Iraq. Nearly a half-dozen charges or investigations have been announced by the military in June alone.
The sudden flurry raises questions about whether American troops are facing increasing psychological duress as the war here grinds on, or perhaps whether the American military has been more keen, following the revelations surrounding Haditha, to make public its investigations into human rights abuses.
Many American troops here in Iraq are on their second or third tour. The Fourth Infantry Division, for instance, had already rotated once through Iraq, in the hostile northern Sunni triangle, before taking control of the Baghdad area.
This is another huge problem with the American military. These soldiers are on their second, third, and perhaps even their fourth tour of duty in Iraq. They are being placed under an enormous level of stress. And it is not just the stress of combat. They are occupying a foreign country, with a foreign culture, facing a population that does not want them there. They are facing long periods of boredom, spiked with intense moments of hit-and-run combat situations, or hidden IEDs exploding upon supply convoys or armed patrols. They have no mission, no formal plan to win the war in Iraq, nor any metrics by which they could measure their progress in fighting this war in Iraq. And finally, the American forces currently serving in Iraq are understaffed for the current occupation of Iraq, are under-equipped with the continued lacking body armor and armed humvees, and what equipment these soldiers are currently using is quickly being worn out by combat operations. In short, the U.S. forces are being ground down by this war in Iraq--a war they cannot win.
Finally, there is this in the Times story:
The deaths were originally attributed by the military to "insurgent activity," American officials said in a written statement. That implies that soldiers involved in the incident may have misreported it to their commanders, or that there may have been a cover-up in the chain of command, as is suspected in the case of the Haditha killings last November.
The latest investigation began on June 24, one day after two soldiers "reported alleged coalition force involvement" in the deaths of the Iraqi family, the military said. A preliminary inquiry conducted after that report determined that there was enough evidence to start a criminal investigation, the military said.
First the deaths in this family were attributed to "insurgent activity" by the American military. After two soldiers reported that these deaths may have been caused by the U.S. military, the U.S. military initiates a full investigation into this matter. Even worst, there is another suspicion of a cover-up with this family killing, to be added to the suspicious cover-up of the Haditha killings.How many other killings have been covered up by the U.S. military?
It is Vietnam all over again.
