[Media-watch] Marines killed FOUR wounded prisoners

[David McKnight]

Marines Killed Four Wounded Iraqi Prisoners: US Reporter
http://207.44.245.159/article7308.htm
BAGHDAD, November 17 (IOL & News Agencies) - The US pool reporter, who broke to the world the killing of a wounded, unarmed Iraqi prisoner by a marine, further revealed that more prisoners were shot dead though they did not appear threatening in any way.

NBC correspondent Kevin Sites was quoted by the Associated Press Wednesday, November 17, as saying that US Marines killed three more unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoners in a Fallujah mosque Saturday, November 12.

He added the wounded had been left in the mosque for others to pick up and move to the rear for treatment. No reason was given why that had not happened.

The shooting in the Fallujah mosque became public Tuesday, November 16, with the airing of the footage taken Saturday by Sites.

In his report, Sites said the man who was killed didn't appear to be armed or threatening in any way, with no weapons visible in the mosque.

Sites said he saw the marine raise his rifle and fire point blank at the head of a man, who was slumped against a wall in a mosque.

US networks and television channels in other countries have widely shown Sites' footage, taken Saturday, but halted it in the second before the shot was fired.

The incident could cause major political problems for the government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his US backers at a time when Iraqi authorities are seeking to contain a backlash among Sunnis to the Fallujah offensive.

Rumsfeld in the Dark

The US military promised a thorough investigation into the incident with the First Marine Division saying in a statement released in Iraq that the marine "has been withdrawn from the battlefield pending the results of the investigation."

The military said it wanted to determine whether the marine acted in self-defense, violated military law or failed to comply with the international Law of Armed Conflict.

"We follow the Law of Armed Conflict and hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability," the marine commander in Fallujah, Lieutenant General John Sattler, said in a statement.

"The facts of this case will be thoroughly pursued to make an informed decision and to protect the rights of all persons involved," he said.

Hawkish Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in Ecuador for meetings with his Latin American counterparts, had little to say about the incident.

"I've not seen that," said Rumsfeld. "I've been told that an American general has addressed the subject and any discussion of what may or may not have taken place which I'm not knowledgeable about would clearly be handled by the military forces and the leadership there in Iraq."

Some 10,000 US marines and army forces, alongside some 2,000 Iraqi national guard soldiers unleashed a long expected onslaught on the resistance hub on November 8, capping long nights of massive US raids.

The successive raids have caused massive damage in the city, with dead bodies still littering the streets.

The current offensive looked set to come at a heavy price for the US military as at least 39 American troops have been killed and up to 250 others evacuated to the US military hospital in the German city of Landstuhl so far, according to US military estimates.

The US military also said about 1,200 resistance fighters have been killed in the bloody incursion.

The killing of wounded Iraqi prisoners come as a grim reminder of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal where US troops harassed, in all forms and types of the word, Iraqi detainees.

Washington also said it would investigate the horrible scenes, deemed by law experts as gross human rights violations, but only few soldiers were sentenced to jail terms and others are still on trial.

Maysoun Hirmiz, 36, a Christian Iraqi merchant in Baghdad, told the AP she was not satisfied by an announcement by the US military that it had removed the Marine from the battlefield and will investigate whether he acted in self defense.

"They will say or do the same thing they did with the soldiers who committed the abuses against Iraqis detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, and they are still free, enjoying their lives while they destroyed other peoples' lives," Hirmiz said. 

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