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'Spray and slay': are American troops out of control in Iraq?
Fresh allegations of American abuse of prisoners continue to appal the
world. But now 'The Independent on Sunday' has uncovered proof of US
troops deliberately and indiscriminately shooting civilians. Here we
examine new evidence that suggests the lawlessness in the American
military was never confined to the prison camps and torture rooms but
extended to the streets and homes of Iraq
By Raymond Whitaker in London and Justin Huggler in Baghdad
23 May 2004
Amid the welter of ugly pictures from Iraq last week were images worse
than those of the humiliation and torture of detainees in Abu Ghraib
prison. These show chunks of flesh and hanks of women's hair scattered
across a scene of devastation. Among the few recognisable objects are
musical instruments.
This is the scene of an incident that has divided Iraqis from their
occupiers like few others. It has highlighted an issue more
significant, yet far less discussed, than mistreatment in prisons: the
degree to which indiscriminate use of American firepower has made
enemies of the Iraqi population. According to independent estimates -
none are available from the coalition - about 11,500 Iraqi civilians
have been killed since the start of the war in March last year.
The footage of flesh, hair and musical instruments was filmed by a
video crew that reached the location of what local people say was a
wedding party attacked without warning by the Americans, killing women
and children. The instruments belonged to the band of Hussein Ali, one
of Iraq's most famous wedding singers, whose relatives buried him in
Baghdad last week.
Despite this evidence - and earlier pictures filmed by al-Arabiya
television, showing two dead babies wrapped side by side in a blanket,
and a headless child lying next to the body of his or her mother -
American commanders continue to insist that their strike, on a remote
village in the desert close to the Syrian border, was against foreign
fighters crossing into Iraq.
"These were more than two dozen military-age males," scoffed Maj-Gen
James Mattis, commander of the US 1st Marine Division. "Let's not be
naive." What about the video footage? Maj-Gen Mattis said he had not
seen it, but added: "Bad things happen in wars. I don't have to
apologise for the conduct of my men." Although an investigation has
been promised, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General
Richard Myers, said in Washington: "We feel at this point very
confident that this was a legitimate target, probably foreign
fighters."
Not only that: the Americans are now also dropping hints that the
"foreign fighters" could be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an
Islamist militant leader and ally of Osama bin Laden who is in Iraq,
and who is accused of personally beheading the American hostage Nick
Berg. Although such a connection was "still to be determined", said
General Myers, it was "not out of the question".
More telling, however, was the reaction of the occupation authorities
to the damaging video footage. US officials demanded al-Arabiya give
them the name of the cameraman who shot the pictures. Al-Arabiya
refused.
As the Abu Ghraib scandal has proved, shocking images can lead to
investigations not only in Iraq but in Afghan-istan, Guantanamo Bay
and elsewhere, and cause trouble not only for the military but for the
CIA and the White House as well. Until they saw the pictures,
Americans were unaware of what was happening to Iraqis in custody;
they remain ignorant of the reasons for the mounting toll of civilian
deaths, both during and since the invasion last year, despite the
evidence of those few Americans who have witnessed them, such as Staff
Sergeant Jimmy Massey, reported opposite.
Ever since the occupation began, there have been regular stories of
American soldiers who were attacked by insurgents on the streets of
Iraqi cities and reacted by spraying the entire area with wild,
indiscriminate gunfire, killing and maiming innocent Iraqi bystanders.
Other accounts, however, are even more sinister.
Before he was jailed for a year last week for failing to return from
leave, another soldier who served in Iraq, Sergeant Camilo Mejia, said
a friend of his, a sniper, had shot a child about 10 years old who was
carrying an automatic weapon. "He realised it was a kid," said
Sergeant Mejia. "The kid tried to get up. He shot him again." The
child died.
Few images exist of such incidents, not least because journalists
seeking to record them have ended up dead themselves. Thanks to the
persistence of one or two news organisations that have lost employees
in Iraq, these deaths are among the few to have been independently
investigated. After an award-winning cameraman, Mazen Dana, became the
second Reuters employee to be killed, the agency hired a security
company and carried out an exhaustive inquiry which found few
differences of fact with the military investigation, but which
differed radically on the conclusions.
The soldier who shot Mr Dana claimed he had made "sudden movements"
which made him think the cameraman was about to fire a
rocket-propelled grenade, that he was blinded by the sun at the time,
and that he could not distinguish at a distance of 75 metres between
an RPG and a television camera.
Despite pages of evidence proving the sun was not in the position
claimed, and photographs demonstrating the visible difference at 75
metres between a camera and a large weapon, the US military is
sticking to its finding that the journalist's death was "justified
based on the information available ... at the time".
If an organisation with the international clout of Reuters cannot get
the Pentagon to admit an error might have been made, the survivors of
last week's slaughtered wedding party have even less chance that their
version of events will prevail. But the incident illustrates several
of the concerns expressed about the operations undertaken by US forces
in Iraq, including their ignorance of Iraqi culture, their isolation
from local people and their over-dependence on firepower.
"How many people go to the middle of the desert 10 miles from the
Syrian border to hold a wedding?" demanded Maj-Gen Mattis.
The answer is plenty, if you come from a clan of livestock herders and
that is where you have lived all your life. The clan straddles the
Syrian border; even distant relatives would be expected to turn up
from there, as well as the far corners of Iraq.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the US military spokesman in Iraq,
said US forces found guns, Syrian passports and a satellite phone at
the scene of the fighting. None of that was surprising, either: even
in the cities, every house has a weapon. In a village 75 miles from
the nearest town they are even more necessary, both to protect against
bandits and to shield flocks from wild animals. With no telephone
lines and no mobile coverage, it is not unusual for such places to
have a satellite phone as well.
"The British military tends to have far more open dealings with the
local population than the Americans," said Christopher Bellamy,
professor of military science at Cranfield University. "While the
British rely more on local intelligence to warn them of trouble in
advance, US forces have a 'stand-off' posture, which means trouble
tends to erupt without warning. As a result they need to deliver
enormous amounts of firepower to overcome it."
Eleanor Goldsworthy, UK forces specialist at the Royal United Services
Institute, said the approach taken by British forces in Iraq was: "If
we behave, we earn their goodwill." The American attitude, by
contrast, was: "If they behave, they earn our goodwill." And if they
don't, others might add, US forces will punish them - the policy that
appeared to be adopted when the Marines moved on Fallujah last month
in the wake of the deaths of four American private security men.
The insistence of the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, on a "war
lite" policy, said Professor Bellamy, meant that "American forces have
to make up in firepower what they lack in manpower". Because US
soldiers specialised early in their careers, and received less overall
training than their British counterparts, the majority were not
effective combat troops, and had to be protected by those with the
appropriate training.
"The philosophy is almost that of the wagon train, and tends to lead
to the 'spray and slay' behaviour we have seen," said the analyst.
"It is hard to over-estimate the lack of awareness of most American
soldiers in Iraq," said a military source. "Many, perhaps most, have
never been abroad before. They see their mission as giving democracy
to the Iraqis and enforcing stability, and find it very difficult to
understand why the Iraqis aren't grateful. They have no idea that they
are seen as arrogant and aggressive."
In the view of British forces, the source added, such attitudes had
led to a succession of "fundamental mistakes", and had made senior
officers extremely hostile to being put under American command. This
is one of the options reported to be under consideration by Downing
Street this weekend as the deployment of more British forces is
weighed.
The US wants Britain to take over from the departed Spanish contingent
in the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, where American firepower
is being deployed against militias loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia
cleric declared an outlaw by Washington.
"Seeking to adopt normal low-profile British tactics in the wake of
American aggressiveness would be difficult enough," said the military
source, "but to have to go in under US operational command would be a
disaster."
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