Ishaqi follows Haditha pattern

BBC

It is a deadly pattern. First, insurgents hit the U.S. military. Probably from safehouses, or with support from some townspeople. Next, the troops get enraged, lose it, and engage in collective punishment by killing innocents. Then, there is a cover-up. Following that, news organizations questioning locals, discover discrepancies. Then, there is an investigation.

Just as in Haditha's case, this has terrible consequences on everyone involved. And it is fueled both by the insurgency's hatred for the presence of U.S. troops and the desire of this incompetent administration for propaganda. [If only they spent half as much effort and money on figuring out how to do things right instead of this futile propaganda, we'd be so much better off.]

In Ishaqi's case, the military today cleared the troops. But perhaps, it will be reopened at a later date?

BBC reports on this, as also Democracy Now! with its original report from Schofield from KR who interviewed the Iraqi police:

MATTHEW SCHOFIELD: There are two accounts. There’s a U.S. military account, and then there’s an Iraqi police account of what happened.

As you know, the U.S. military account is that after showing up and getting into a shootout to get into this house, the house collapsed during the shootout. People were killed either in the shootout or by the collapsing house. They left. They found four bodies and left. They found this suspect. They arrested him. And that's pretty much that story.

The other story is that the house was standing when the U.S. troops went in. They were herded into one room -- eleven people herded into one room, executed. U.S. troops then blew up the house and left.

We were talking with the police officer who was first on the scene earlier today. He explained the scene of arriving. He said they waited until U.S. troops had left the area and it was safe to go in. When they arrived at the house, it was in rubble. I don't know if you've seen the photos of the remains of the house, but there was very little standing. He said they expected to find bodies under the rubble. Instead, what they found was in one room of the house, in one corner of one room, there was a single man who had been shot in the head. Directly across the room from him against the other wall were ten people, ranging from his 75-year-old mother-in-law to a six-month-old child, also several three-year-olds -- a couple three-year-olds, a couple five-year-olds, and four other -- three other women.

Lined up, they were covered, and they had all been shot. According to the doctor we talked to today, they had all been shot in the head, in the chest. A number of -- you know, generally, some of them were shot several times. The doctor said it's very difficult to determine exactly what kind of caliber gun they were shot with. He said the entry wounds were generally small and round, the exit wounds were generally very large. But they were lined up along one wall. There was a blanket over the top of them, and they were under the rubble, so when the police arrived, and residents came to help them start digging in, they came across the blankets.

They came across the blankets. They picked the blankets up. They say, at that point, that the hands were handcuffed in front of the Iraqis. They had been handcuffed and shot. And the Iraqi assumption is that they were shot in front of the man across the room. They came to be facing each other. There is nothing to corroborate that. The U.S. is now investigating this matter, along with the Haditha matter. That's kind of where we stand right now."