by TChris

The AP reports that U.S. helicopters fired on a wedding party in Iraq, killing more than 40 people.

Associated Press Television News footage showed a truck containing bloodied bodies, many wrapped in blankets, piled one atop the other. Several were children, one of whom had been decapitated.

Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said revelers had fired volleys of gunfire into the air in a traditional wedding celebration before the attack took place. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.

The AP report says the military is investigating. An anonymous source at the Pentagon told the AP that a military operation was being conducted about 15 miles from the wedding celebration.

If the report is accurate, this incident represents another blunder that will convince Iraqis that the U.S. places no value on innocent Iraqi lives. Now that Wolfowitz has admitted that the Pentagon "miscalculated" the strength and endurance of the resistence occupation forces were likely to encounter, will the Pentagon also admit that it only harms U.S. interests by continuing to kill the innocent?