Wikileaks Cable on US Troops' Murder of Iraqi Family in Ishaqi
In Iraq in 2006, U.S. soldiers herded 11 members of a family into a room, including a 75 year old woman and five children, handcuffed them, and shot them point blank.
The story was widely reported in 2006 (we covered it here, and even I gave the soldiers the benefit of the doubt as to whether they shot the kids at point-blank range -- silly me.)
A newly released cable from Wikileaks (available here) authored by Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, a few weeks after the killings, recounts the original police report of the killings stating that the family was handcuffed and shot at close range. The cable says soldiers then called in an airstrike to bomb the house and destroy the evidence.
The U.S. had maintained that the soldiers raided the house after getting a tip that a member of al-Qaida was at the house. The U.S. said a fierce gunfight ensued that left the house in a rubble and a few people, including the al qaeda suspect, dead. It refused to conduct a further investigation. [More...]
< Feds Issue New Reporting Rules for Lawyers and Merchants Accepting Credit Cards | The Need For Fiscal Stimulus > |