By Seattle Times news services
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's prime minister says his country will conduct its own investigations into what he suggested were multiple cases of killings of civilians by U.S.-led forces, saying his government may demand greater restraints on foreign troops as a condition of their staying in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. general in Iraq, seeking to quell outrage over allegations that Marines went on a killing spree against 24 unarmed civilians last November in the city of Haditha, ordered all U.S. troops in the country to undergo additional ethics training.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, head of a Shiite Muslim-led governing coalition that, at times, has expressed resentment of the U.S. troop presence here, on Thursday formally condemned not just the Haditha killings but what he called "the practice" of occupying forces' disregard for civilians in Iraq.
"These forces do not respect the citizens, some of whom are crushed by tanks, others shot. ... They run them over and leave them, or they kill anyone suspicious," said al-Maliki, who leads Iraq's first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein, after a Cabinet meeting.
Al-Maliki condemned what he called a "terrible crime in which women and children were eliminated."
He said he would establish a special committee to investigate the Haditha incident and would demand an apology from the United States for the killings, something the U.S. military has consistently refused to do when confronted with instances in which civilians are killed.
"The allegations of Haditha are troubling to all of us," said Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
Abu Ghraib verdict: A U.S. Army sergeant was found guilty Thursday of assaulting a prisoner with his dog at Abu Ghraib prison, becoming the 11th soldier convicted in the scandal that President Bush has called the biggest mistake of the U.S. war in Iraq. Sgt. Santos Cardona, 32, of Fullerton, Calif., was convicted on two out of nine counts against him — failing to handle his dog properly and using the unmuzzled Belgian shepherd to threaten one detainee. He faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison.
Murder Charges : Military prosecutors plan to file murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against seven Marines and a Navy corpsman in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in April, a defense lawyer said Thursday. The men served in Iraq with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, and are members of the battalion's Kilo Company.
Separately, another group of five Marines in Kilo Company, including a lieutenant who commanded the platoon, are under investigation for injuring a suspect in their custody, according to a defense attorney.
Killings: In Baghdad violence, seven mortar rounds hit houses in the predominantly Sunni Arab southern Dora district, killing nine civilians and wounding 40. And a bomb hidden in a plastic bag exploded on Tayaran square, less than a mile from the heavily guarded Green Zone, hitting a group of job-seeking construction workers as they ate breakfast. At least two people were killed and 18 wounded, police said.
Chiarelli said the U.S. military soon would begin "core warrior-values training" for most of the roughly 150,000 multinational troops in Iraq.
"Out of those 150,000 soldiers, I'd dare to say that 99.9 percent of them are doing the right thing," he said.
The Haditha incident now looms as a serious threat to Bush's hopes of reviving public support at home for the war — now in its fourth year — as well as a growing impediment to smooth relations with the Iraqi government.
Two U.S. military investigations are under way into the shooting deaths of 24 townspeople by members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Iraqi witnesses and survivors, and U.S. officials briefed on the findings so far, say the Marines appear to have shot the civilians in cold blood in retaliation for the roadside-bombing death of a fellow Marine, and that the incident was covered up by mid-level officers.
The Marines initially said 15 of the civilians had been killed in the bombing and that eight others, described as insurgents, were killed in fighting that followed.
Chiarelli said the instruction ordered for foreign troops would amount to "refresher training."
Beginning in boot camp, Marines are lectured on the Geneva Conventions and other laws governing warfare. Marines deployed to Iraq receive training in the rules of engagement that govern the use of lethal force.
The training announcement comes one day after the U.S. military acknowledged shooting to death a pregnant woman and her mother near a U.S. checkpoint in Samarra.
Nabeeha Nassayef, 33, was about to give birth, and her family had driven into the city to take her to the hospital. They were unfamiliar with the roads, her brother said, and wound up on a street that had been closed by U.S. troops.
The U.S. military said it regretted the deaths and was investigating the incident.
That investigation is separate from a criminal probe of the Haditha incident.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the military is conducting three other investigations into misconduct.
"We're here as guests of the Iraqi people," Caldwell said. "As such, that's how we should conduct ourselves."
Under the U.N. charter, the U.S.-led coalition technically can remain in Iraq only at the invitation of the Iraqi government. U.S. troops aren't bound by Iraqi legal processes under an order issued in 2004 by the U.S.-led occupation government called the Coalition Provisional Authority.
In the past few months, Chiarelli also has "taken deliberate steps to reduce escalation of force" by examining how to improve checkpoints and signals used by U.S. forces to warn approaching civilians, Caldwell said.
In the past, Chiarelli has said that U.S. troops in Iraq unintentionally create more rebels by treating Iraqis in a heavy-handed manner.
While reports have surfaced repeatedly of civilians killed at U.S.-manned checkpoints, U.S. military officials have not divulged any statistics of the number of Iraqis killed or maimed by U.S. troops since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, saying it doesn't keep track of civilian deaths.
More than 4,000 Iraqis — many of them civilians — have been killed in war-related violence this year, including at least 936 in May, according to an Associated Press count.
As of Thursday, 2,473 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war.
The Iraqi figures show that civilians, not security forces, are increasingly the casualties of violence.
U.S. officials have said the vast majority of civilian deaths involving U.S. troops were justifiable, if regrettable, instances in which U.S. soldiers, fearing suicide bombers, were forced to make split-second decisions to save their own lives. Others were the result of insurgents taking shelter near civilians, who died when U.S. forces responded to gunfire.
The frequent killings are the subject of much bitterness among Iraqis, many of whom consider the Americans as threatening as the insurgents and militias who are responsible for most Iraqi deaths.
To many Iraqis, the soldiers are occupiers seeking to control the country's oil wealth.
The Americans, on the other hand, are under intense pressure, isolated from Iraqis by cultural and language barriers and battling insurgents who easily blend into the civilian population. Some of the troops are in Iraq on their third combat tour since the U.S. invasion.
In contrast with the prominence of the story in the U.S. media, however, the Haditha deaths had received little attention here until yesterday.
Some Sunni Arabs allege that the Shiite Muslim majority simply isn't very interested in the bloodshed in the mainly Sunni western provinces.
As for al-Maliki, a wary Iraqi public is watching to see whether his Shiite-dominated government will take seriously the death of civilians in predominantly Sunni Arab towns.
"I have said that all provinces and all Iraqis are the same for us," al-Maliki said Thursday.
Al-Maliki has said he'll aggressively address the country's pervasive security problems, calling them a priority.
In Washington, President Bush acknowledged the Haditha controversy Thursday.
"This is just a reminder for troops in Iraq, or throughout our military, that there are high standards expected of them and that there are strong rules of engagement," Bush said. "Obviously, the allegations are very troubling for me and equally troubling for our military, especially the Marine Corps."
The president promised that the investigation's results would be made public.
Compiled from The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Associated Press and Knight Ridder Newspapers reports