MSNBC: US Troops Fire on Iraqi Wedding, More Than 40 Killed

At this point it's the military that is investigating and responding, as they should be...not the administration.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20040524/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_attack

<b> U.S. Says Iraq Attack Site Wasn't Wedding </b>

By ANTHONY DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military said Monday its photographs of rifles, machine guns, white powder and foreign passports support its case that it attacked a safehouse for foreign fighters — not a wedding party — near the Syrian border.

Iraqi survivors and police said up to 45 people died, and that the victims had been celebrating a wedding. Video that Associated Press Television News shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans, and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around a bombed out tent.

"At this point, we have seen really nothing that causes us to change our minds. That's why we need to get as much evidence as possible and hand it to the investigators," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition deputy chief of staff for operations in Iraq (news - web sites).

"What we found on the ground and our post-strike analysis suggests that what we had was a significant foreign fighter smuggler waystation in the middle of the desert that was bringing people into this country for the sole purpose of attacking to kill the people of Iraq," he said.

Kimmitt said the U.S. operation lasted from midnight until about 4 a.m. and that ground forces moved in after the bombing.

"We have found no evidence of any children being killed by people on the ground," he said at a news conference. "We have witnesses say that there were no children there."

For the second time, Kimmitt showed pictures of items the military said it found at the attack site, including machine guns, rounds of ammunition, a Sudan Airways plane ticket, medical gear, a Sudanese passport and battery packs associated with improvised explosive devises.

"These are pictures that are somewhat inconsistent, to my mind, with a wedding party," Kimmitt said.

New evidence showed the events on the ground to be "somewhat inconsistent with a wedding party," he said.

Earlier Monday, a senior coalition official said on condition of anonymity that the U.S. military hasn't ruled anything out as it looks into Wednesday's pre-dawn operation, but said he is confident that a legitimate target had been hit.

The official said an investigation into the events "probably" would take weeks.

"We have not denied anything about this incident. We still don't believe there was a wedding going on, or a wedding party going on, when we hit in the early morning hours. Could there have been some sort of celebration going on earlier? Certainly," the official said.

Several hours of video footage obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News showed a wedding party that survivors said was later attacked by U.S. planes. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.

Among those killed were 27 members of the same family, survivors said.

APTN footage taken on Wednesday in the city of Ramadi shows the burials of women and children who allegedly died in the wedding attack. The U.S. military has said up to six women may have died in its operation.

 

Not taking any sides in this yet (other than Jeff's ), but one question occured to me - don't terrorists get married too?

 

That's what I was thinking, I didn't see how it had to be one clear cut answer, isn't there a possibility that maybe there was a wedding, and maybe it was being performed by baddies.

 

Jeff, I couldn't disagree with this more. Perhaps if you had said, "... a lot of people". That would be accurate, and is a damn shame, but debate and discussion is the main reason I post in D&D, and we've had some excellent ones.

Your salient point, however, is dead on. There are posters here who delight in baiting others or, perhaps, are just that stupid to think it's enjoyed. Recently, when Uncle_Tim called mrpaige a "traitor" (and I think he said, "a traitor who should be shot"), I thought I had entered the Twilight Zone. mrpaige had the temerity to be opposed to a resumption of the draft, which I wholeheartedly agreed with. To his credit, mrpaige pretty much ignored it, which is more than I could have done. There is no place for that sort of thing on this board. Period.

mrpaige and I had one hell of a good debate/discussion/argument about redistricting in Texas. We really got into it, tooth and nails, if I recall correctly, and he gave me fits on an issue I feel strongly about, but I don't remember it ever getting "personal"... it was a lot of fun. Heated, but a lot of fun. That's the sort of thing this forum is great for, and I couldn't have had that experience quite that way anywhere else. Something for you to consider.

Listen, I'll do my best to ignore the more imflamatory tirades that pop up here and try my very best to not fire back in kind. We all should. This forum is valuable and the people who are ****ing things up should consider what ClutchFans would be like if it wasn't here. The site would be diminished, and that would bother me, anyway, immensely. We can and should be better than this.

Let's do it.

 

I respect posters from both sides of the political spectrum a lot...Deckard, Major, Jeff/Trader_Jorge, Refman, Faos, to just name a few of many - I really learn quite a bit from the discussions here.

I think that it is in the nature of some of these discussions that they are argumentative and, as I said, I think that it sometimes is entertaining when it gets heated. So I would think it would be a loss if posters got banned left and right just because they cross the line a few times - especially since this is already the forum where "a bit more goes". On the other hand, if people ONLY post the same drivel over and over and over again, and obviously only lash out at other posters or try to get other posters banned, then that is wrong.

So, my vote (I know I don't have one, but... ) would be to leave things as they are and for people to just restrain themselves a little, knowing, after Jeff's warning, that they might just get kicked a little sooner than it might have been the case previously.

But please, don't ban the poor monkeys just for flinging a bit of poo! The entertainment value would seriously go down here .

 

From the video evidence another possibility is folks got married in the day, from the US press conference - bad guys met there at night. The problem is the strength of the rejection of the US after conflicting evidence arose makes any defense by the US suspect.

 

Maybe it's time to get some additional moderators... I'll nominate Major and MrPaige for the D&D.

All in favor say "Aye!"

"Aye!"

1-0.

 

I'm happy enough with the current moderators. I think they do a great job considering they all seem to hate this particular forum, except Jeff who just seems to think it should be better. But I think Major and mrpaige would be excellent mods here. They're both totally invested, they know the cast of characters as well as anyone and they're both fair as hell. Plus one's right and one's left.

 

Aye, if they are wanted and want to do it.

 

I suggest Batman Jones and Trader_Jorge as moderators, but they have to be in agreement for any action to take effect .

 

I'm not UNHAPPY with the moderators; I just gleaned from Jeff's post that the current moderators of the D&D might be unhappy on the job, so new blood might be called for... excuse the poor choice of words!

 

I will gladly answer the call to moderate. Jeff, Clutch, Brian, et al, please go ahead and email me the instructions to be a moderator. We're about to thin this liberal herd.

 

This just got too funny...

 

Reminds me of that line from Monty Python's the Quest for the Holy Grail about the autonomous collective with a rotating executive!

 

As I stated earlier, I am not taking any position yet. Both sides seem quite capable of lying and manipulating the media, although I would hope the terrorists might be a little more practiced at it.

The fact is, we don't know yet what happened. Why not wait for more evidence to come to light before jumping to any conclusions?