MB Civic

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  June 7, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

THE US MILITARY calls them engagements. Iraqi families are throwing back the rings.

The military exonerated itself in the killing of children and women in Ishaqi in March. Because troops said they caught one Al Qaeda leader and killed another there, William Caldwell, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said the troops “properly followed the rules of engagement.” Updating the initial military report that only four people were killed, Caldwell said, “The investigating officer concluded that possibly up to nine collateral deaths resulted from this engagement, but could not determine the precise number due to collapsed walls and heavy debris.”

Caldwell added, “Allegations that the troops executed a family living in this safe house, and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false.”

This stance of absolute truth was only more poison in Iraq. At the official level, Adnan al-Kazimi, an aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said Iraq would investigate the case on its own. “The report was not fair for the Iraqi people,” Kazimi told journalists.

In March, Knight Ridder Newspapers obtained a signed local Iraqi police report that said, “The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women, and two men. Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles, and killed their animals.”

The report said the victims ranged in age from 75 to 6 months, and the other children were 5 and under. Other witnesses said US soldiers landed in helicopters and entered what the report called a safe house, firing shots before destroying the building. Local police official Farooq Hussein told Reuters, “It’s a clear and perfect crime without any doubt.”

US officials said there were too many discrepancies in the Iraqi police reports to take them seriously. Local residents said US officials hardly investigated at all. In March, Ahmed Khalaf, a brother of Faez Khalaf, who was one of those slain, told the Associated Press, “The killed family was not part of the resistance; they were women and children. The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death.”

From the start, local officials and residents seemed to have a much better handle on the number of people killed than did the United States, which has avoided body counts — except when it needs to brag about how many insurgents were killed. “We want Americans to give an explanation for this horrible crime which took the smile and the dream of a spring night from 11 people and destroyed even the simple toys of children,” Rashid Thair told Knight Ridder. Because of that, the exoneration is going down bitterly in Ishaqi.

Adif Maruf, who lost her sister-in-law, nephew, and niece, said, “We just want the American soldiers to be exposed. We do not want it to be repeated again.”

Khalaf said in The Washington Post of those killed, “We know they were not terrorists, they were not shooting at the Americans, and they were killed in cold blood.” He told the Independent of London, “Where are the terrorists? Are they the old lady or the kids? It looks like the lives of Iraqis are worthless.” Ahmad Hussein, who lost a cousin, told the Post, “America is forcing us to go and join the resistance. If this goes on like this, in the end we will find ourselves forced to fight the Americans.”

Similar quotes have popped up all over Iraq in questionable killings of Iraqi civilians in the three-year invasion and occupation. Last week, after US troops fired on a car they said violated a road closure, only to kill two women, one of them pregnant, the surviving driver and brother of the pregnant woman, Khalid Nisaif Jassim, told the Associated Press, “May God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here. People are shocked and fed up with the Americans.”

In Haditha, the scariest quote came from a child survivor. Nine-year-old Iman Walid Abdul-Hamid, who watched her grandparents, parents, a brother, and an uncle killed, said, “Because they hurt us, we want the Americans to be executed.” We said we were liberating Iraq. We are creating thousands of children who want to execute us. The US government can talk all it wants about justified “engagements.” We are well on our way to leaving Iraq in a bitter divorce.