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Reuters - Oct 12, 2007
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12332485.htm

UN calls for inquiry into deadly US strike in Iraq

By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The United Nations mission in Iraq urged
U.S. forces on Friday to pursue a "vigorous" probe into an air strike
that killed 15 women and children and said its findings must be made
public so that lessons can be learned.

It said the safety of civilians should be a top priority during
military operations. In a human rights report published on Thursday,
the same day as the attack, the mission highlighted the number of Iraqi
civilians killed in recent U.S. air strikes.

The civilian death toll in Thursday's operation was one of the largest
acknowledged by U.S. forces from an air strike since former president
Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

"Civilians are getting caught far too often between warring
combatants," said U.N. mission spokesman Said Arikat. "We understand
the security concerns, but we also hope that every possible safety
measure is taken not to harm any civilians.

The U.S. military said it was conducting a "thorough investigation"
into the strike by its attack helicopters on a suspected meeting of
senior al Qaeda leaders north of Baghdad on Thursday that killed nine
children, six women and 19 insurgents.

"In every instance we take as many precautions as possible to ensure
innocent lives are not at risk," military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg
Smith said.

"We are committed to working with affected families and taking care of
their needs."

The U.S. military says insurgents often deliberately hide among
civilians and previous air strikes on suspected militant hideouts have
resulted in civilian deaths.

In its human rights report, covering the April to June period, the
United Nations Mission in Iraq said it had recorded a number of
incidents in which a total of 88 civilians were reported to have been
killed in U.S. air strikes.

Thursday's incident, on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, is likely
to reignite tensions between Washington and Baghdad, which has
repeatedly criticised U.S. forces over the number of Iraqi civilians
killed in military operations.

There was no immediate response from the Iraqi government, which was
shut down for the Muslim holiday.

"We certainly hope that they do pursue this vigorously and that these
findings will be made public and lessons learned," Arikat told Reuters.

TARGETING AL QAEDA

The 15 were killed during an operation targeting senior leaders of al
Qaeda in the Lake Thar Thar area 80 km (50 miles) northwest of the
Iraqi capital early on Thursday night.

Smith said imagery from aerial drones and the helicopters was being
studied to get a better understanding of how events unfolded. Under the
military's rules of engagement, soldiers were permitted to take
measures to protect themselves if they came under fire.

The U.S. military said in a statement that intelligence reports and
surveillance had indicated senior al Qaeda figures were meeting in the
Thar Thar area. An initial air strike on the site killed four
insurgents.

Some suspects were then seen leaving the site and travelling to an area
south of the lake, where U.S. forces were fired upon from gunmen in a
building. A second air strike was called in.

"After securing the area, the ground force assessed 15 terrorists, six
women and nine children were killed, two suspects, one woman and three
children were wounded, and one suspected terrorist was detained," the
military statement said.

***

The Washington Post - Oct 12, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101102138.html
OR: http://snipurl.com/1s3ps

U.N. Report on Iraq Details An 'Ever-Deepening' Crisis

U.S. Airstrike on Insurgents Also Kills 15 Civilians

By Joshua Partlow and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 -- A U.N. report issued Thursday outlined an
"ever-deepening humanitarian crisis" in Iraq, with thousands of people
driven from their homes each month, ongoing indiscriminate killings and
"routine torture" in Iraqi prisons.

Also Thursday, a U.S. airstrike in Iraq killed 15 civilians -- nine
women and six children -- and 19 suspected insurgents, the military
said. "We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while Coalition
forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism," Maj. Brad Leighton, a U.S.
military spokesman, said in a statement.

U.S. troops targeting leaders of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in
Iraq came under fire while approaching a building near Lake Tharthar in
Anbar province northwest of Baghdad, and aircraft fired on the site in
response, the military said. The bombing also wounded six people,
including a woman and three children.

The assessment by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, which covered a
three-month period ending June 30, found that civilians were suffering
"devastating consequences" from violence across the country. It
documented more than 100 civilians allegedly killed by U.S.-led forces
during airstrikes or raids.

The report described Iraq in more dire terms than last month's
congressional testimony from top U.S. military and embassy officials,
which stressed improvements in the security situation.

"The killings are still taking place, the torture is still being
reported, the due process issues are still unresolved," said Ivana
Vuco, a U.N. human rights officer in Baghdad.

The first draft of the U.N. report was completed in August, but release
of the final version was delayed for more than a month following a
request by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, according to a
confidential account by a senior U.N. official. Crocker insisted that
Iraq be given time to respond to the allegations, according to the
account. The United States then prepared critical assessments of the
U.N. investigation that were included in the final report.

U.N. officials in Baghdad said the report was not intended to challenge
the U.S. military's assertion that this year's troop escalation helped
reduce violence in much of Iraq. The reporting period ended before the
time in which the U.S. military has described the sharpest drops in
violence. The U.N. agency said it was again unable to persuade the
Iraqi government to release civilian casualty figures.

Vuco said her organization was not trying to determine whether the
situation in Iraq had improved or deteriorated. "As long as there are
human rights violations, there are still concerns," she said.

Among the most serious issues raised in the report is the treatment of
detainees. The U.N. agency found that as of June, 44,325 detainees were
in Iraqi or U.S. custody, an increase of nearly 4,000 people since
April. Many of them, it said, remained in detention for months without
having their cases reviewed or with limited access to legal counsel.
The report also expressed concerns about overcrowding and poor hygiene
in detention centers, particularly pretrial holding cells run by the
Interior Ministry in Baghdad. The agency said it "remained gravely
concerned at continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture
or ill-treatment of detainees."

"In addition to routine beatings with hosepipes, cables and other
implements, the methods cited included prolonged suspension from the
limbs in contorted and painful positions for extended periods,
sometimes resulting in dislocation of the joints; electric shocks to
sensitive parts of the body; the breaking of limbs; forcing detainees
to sit on sharp objects, causing serious injury and heightening the
risk of infection; and severe burns to parts of the body through the
application of heated implements," the report said.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the
ministry "totally rejects this report." Khalaf said politicians,
journalists and human rights workers have visited ministry facilities,
and "they didn't witness any kind of abuse."

The U.N. report warned of an increased rate of violence against women,
particularly "honor" killings, in the semiautonomous Kurdish region in
northern Iraq. In the first half of the year, regional government
statistics counted 23 women killed by "blunt objects," 195 by burning
and 37 by gunfire.

The report also highlighted the estimated 2.2 million Iraqis now living
as refugees outside Iraq, about half of them in neighboring Syria.

In Baghdad on Thursday evening, a car bomb exploded in front of a
popular cafe in the New Baghdad neighborhood, killing at least eight
people and wounding more than 25, according to police and witnesses.
The explosion took place about 9 p.m., as the cafe was crowded with
patrons drinking tea and smoking water pipes.

The U.S. military also reported that rockets or mortar shells crashed
down Wednesday evening on Camp Liberty, a major U.S. military base near
the Baghdad airport, killing two members of the U.S.-led coalition and
wounding 40 other people. In a separate incident, a U.S. soldier was
killed Wednesday during a combat operation in eastern Baghdad.

[Lynch reported from the United Nations.]
*