*This piece has been edited since the original
posting to incorporate new information. Most recent update: 27
March.*
What happened in the village of Abu Sifa, in the rural
Al-Isahaqi district north of Baghdad, on the Ides of March? The
murk of war – the natural blur of unbuckled event, and its
artificial augmentation by professional massagers – shrouds the
details of the actual operation. But here is what we know.
We know that U.S. forces conducted a raid on a house in the
village on March 15. We know that
the Pentagon said the American troops were "targeting an
individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for the
al-Qaeda in Iraq terror network," when their team came under
fire, and that the troops "returned fire, utilizing both air and
ground assets." We know that the Pentagon said that "only" one
man, two women and one child were killed in the raid, which
destroyed a house in the village.
We know
from photographic evidence that the corpses of two men, four
shrouded figures (women, according to the villagers), and five
children – all of them apparently under the age of five, one as
young as seven months – were pulled from the rubble of the house
and laid out for burial beneath the bright, blank desert sky. We
know that an Associated Press reporter on the scene saw the
ruined house, and a photographer for Agence France Presse took
the pictures of the bodies.
We know that two Iraqi police officials, Major Ali Ahmed and
Colonel Farouq Hussein – both employed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi
government – told Reuters that the 11 occupants of the house,
including the five children,
had been bound and shot in the head before the house was blown
up. We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police told Reuters
that an American helicopter landed on the roof in the early
hours of the morning, then the house was blown up, and then the
victims were discovered. We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi
police said that an autopsy performed on the bodies found that
"all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head." We know that
the U.S.-backed Iraqi police said they found "spent
American-issue cartridges in the rubble."
We know that a
Knight-Ridder reporter later saw a preliminary police report
indicating that the 11 victims had multiple wounds. This was
presented in American papers as a possible contradiction of the
original Iraqi police statements, which Knight-Ridder said spoke
of victims suffering "a single gunshot to the head." However, in
all of the original reports, the Iraqi police were quoted as
saying the victims were shot in the head; they did not say
whether there were other wounds as well.
We know that Ahmed Khalaf, brother of house's owner, told AP
that nine of the victims were family members and two were
visitors, adding, "the killed family was not part of the
resistance, they were women and children. The Americans have
promised us a better life, but we get only death."
We know from the photographs that one child, the youngest, the
baby, has a gaping wound in his forehead. We can see that one
other child, a girl with a pink ribbon in her hair, is lying on
her side and has blood oozing from the back of her head. The
faces of the other children are turned upwards toward the sun;
if they were shot, they were shot in the back of the head and
their wounds are not evident. But we can see that their bodies,
though covered with dust from the rubble, are otherwise whole;
they were evidently not crushed in the collapse of the house.
They died in some other fashion.
We know from the photographs that two of the children – two
girls, still in their pajamas – are lying with their dead eyes
open. We can see that the light and tenderness that animate the
eyes of every young child have vanished; nothing remains but the
brute stare of nothingness into nothingness. We can see that the
other three children have their eyes closed; two are limp, but
the baby has one stiffened arm raised to his cheek, as if trying
to ward off the blow that gashed and pulped his face so
terribly.
These facts are what we know from American officials,
American-backed Iraqi officials and reporters for Western press
associations on the scene. This is probably all we will ever
know for certain about what happened in Isahaqi on March 15. The
rest will remain obscured by the murk instigated by U.S.
military spokesmen, who are evidently not telling the truth
about the body count of the raid, and by the natural confusion
that must attend the villagers' description of an attack that
struck without warning in the middle of the night. But beyond
this cloud of unknowing, there are a few other facts relevant to
the case that can be clearly established.
For instance, we know that the American troops who caused the
deaths of these children – either by tying them up and shooting
them, an unspeakable atrocity, or else "merely" by storming or
bombing a house full of civilians in a night raid "with both air
and ground assets" – were sent to Iraq on a demonstrably false
mission to "disarm" weapons that did not exist and take revenge
for 9/11 on a nation that had nothing to do with the attack. And
we now know that the White House – and George W. Bush
specifically –
knew all along that the intelligence did not and could not
support the public case he had made for the war.
We know that the only reason that this dead baby has his arm
frozen to his lifeless face is that three years ago this week,
George W. Bush gave the order to begin the unprovoked, unjust
and unnecessary invasion of Iraq. He hasn't fired a single shot
or launched a single missile; he hasn't tortured or killed any
prisoners; he hasn't kidnapped or beheaded civilians or planted
bombs along roadsides, in mosques or marketplaces. Yet every
single atrocity of the war – on both sides – and every single
death caused by the war, and every act of religious repression
perpetrated by the extremist sects empowered by the war, is the
direct result of the decision made by George W. Bush three years
ago. Nothing he says can change this fact; nothing he does, or
causes to be done, for good or ill, can wash the blood of these
children – and the tens of thousands of other innocent civilians
killed in the war – from his hands.
And anyone who knows these facts, who sees these facts,
and fails to cry out against them – if only in your own heart –
will be forever tainted by this same blood.
*Our webmaster, Rich Kastelein, has
provided his usual sterling service in finding all the available
photos of the Isahaqi victims and piecing them together with the
stories on the case.
You can find that package here.*
UPDATE FROM RICHARD:
I have also created a Flash presentation with Chris's writing,
images of the war crime which is set to music from Peter
Gabriel. Click on the banner to the left
or here.
Warning: graphic photographs in this movie; mostly not suitable
for children or those of a sensitive nature.
http://isahaqi.chris-floyd.com/
Mike Whitney has written an excellent article on the subject
at the SF Bay View which has been making its way around the Net.
UPDATE FROM CHRIS: Time Magazine has a story on
another murk-enshrouded incident in another village that left 15
unarmed Iraqis dead, including seven women and three children:
One Morning in Haditha |
