U.S. Investigating Strike That Killed 15 Civilians

[Flabbergasted]

Source: NYT

U.S. Investigating Strike That Killed 15 Civilians

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
Published: October 13, 2007

snip

We do not target civilians,” the admiral said in an interview today. “But when our forces are fired upon, as they are routinely, then they have no option but to return fire.”

snip

“A ground element came under fire from that building that we had to neutralize,” Admiral Smith said. Nineteen insurgents were reported killed. It was not clear on Friday whether American commanders knew so many civilians were in or near the structure when they authorized the airstrike.

“The enemy has a vote here,” Admiral Smith said, “and when he chooses to surround himself with civilians and then fire upon U.S. forces, our forces have no choice but to return a commensurate amount of fire. Which is what they did last evening.” The civilian deaths, on the eve of the Id al-Fitr holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan, came at a time of extreme sensitivity among Iraqi and American officials here regarding the mistaken or inadvertent killing of noncombatants by American military and private security forces.

Also on Friday, a suicide bomber pushing a candy cart into a playground in the northern town of Tuz Khormato killed one 8-year-old boy and wounded 23 others, a senior police official said. A security guard, whose child was playing in the park, was also killed after he tried to subdue the bomber as he entered the playground, said Lt. Col. Abbas Muhammad, the city’s police chief

snip

The military said that an American patrol found a weapons cache on Tuesday that contained two American M-4 service rifles and an American M-249 belt-fed machine gun, which belonged to one of the kidnapped soldiers, Spc. Alex Jimenez.




Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?hp

[Hydra]

1. 19/15 insurgent vs civ death

Now that's sloppy work, even for us.

Notice how we know they are "Al-Qaeda," even though all the civ deaths were women and children?

I'm guessing the number was more like 2/32.

:wtf:

[subsuelo]

4. does it matter really?

we have no right to be killing anyone in iraq

[Hydra]

5. That was my point

but it was general shock that we can openly kill 15 women and children and declare it the fault of Al-Qaeda...
:puke:

[scarface2004]

2. investigating so they can whitewash..

our military is a bunch of gutless sadistic psychotic assholes!! they should never have rushed to invade iraq, should have told bush to go fuck himself, the order to invade was illegal!!

[Doctor_J]

3. They're investigating themselves - I'm confident the results will be honest

:eyes: