US Official Plays Down Iraq PM Comments on Haditha

[sabra]

http://www.aina.org/news/20060606135938.htm

US Official Plays Down Iraq PM Comments on Haditha

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A senior State Department official on Tuesday played down tough criticism by Iraq's prime minister over the Haditha incident, saying "I wouldn't make too much out of" the remarks.

...

The State Department's Iraq coordinator, James Jeffrey, said he believed U.S. forces were well-respected in Iraq and Maliki's outburst was to be expected.

"It's a defense mechanism. ... I wouldn't make too much out of it," he said of Maliki's criticism. "There is a constant buzz in Iraq of what our troops did or didn't do," Jeffrey told a group of defense writers.

...

Jeffrey also said he did not believe the impact of the incident could be compared to the scandal over abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, in which shocking pictures were published worldwide.

[ThomCat]

1. Shouldn't that "constant buzz" be a wake-up call?

:wtf:

[daleo]

2. Don't make too much of it

"He's just annoyed about our troops killing Iraqi civilians."

[Roland99]

3. "U.S. forces were well-respected in Iraq"...the article cut this off >>>>

"among the rest of the puppets in the Iraqi gov't."

[cliss]

4. Meanwhile, after the microphone

is pulled away from Mr. Jeffrey's face, we see big sweat stains under his arms. It IS warm in Washington these days... Mr. Jeffreys puts his jacket back on.

You heard it from the Horse's mouth: "There's a constant buzz in Iraq of what our troops did or didn't do".

Hmmm

[gratuitous]

5. Every now and then our sheep stray out of the pasture

But don't worry, Mr. Maliki will be back in line and that right soon.

[Jacobin]

6. One of the puppet strings came loose temporarily

I'm sure they're busy reattaching it as we speak.

:-)

[warrens]

7. He might want to see the cover of the new Newsweek

You know, the one with the wrapped up corpses.

[Spazito]

8. Translation: He is just talking tough to look good to Iraqis so they

won't figure out he's our puppet so "I wouldn't make too much out of" the remarks.

Mr. Jeffrey is simply telling the truth as the US sees it, Iraqis, on the other hand, know the facts, the REAL facts.

[struggle4progress]

9. Their PM, deputy PM, and ambassador to the US all made comments:

Iraq's prime minister condemns U.S. forces
By Seattle Times news services
Friday, June 2, 2006 - Page updated at 07:32 AM

... Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, head of a Shiite Muslim-led governing coalition that, at times, has expressed resentment of the U.S. troop presence here, on Thursday formally condemned not just the Haditha killings but what he called "the practice" of occupying forces' disregard for civilians in Iraq.

"These forces do not respect the citizens, some of whom are crushed by tanks, others shot. ... They run them over and leave them, or they kill anyone suspicious," said al-Maliki, who leads Iraq's first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein, after a Cabinet meeting.

Al-Maliki condemned what he called a "terrible crime in which women and children were eliminated."

He said he would establish a special committee to investigate the Haditha incident and would demand an apology from the United States for the killings, something the U.S. military has consistently refused to do when confronted with instances in which civilians are killed ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003034318_haditha02.html


Iraqi Leaders Assail U.S. on Civilian Deaths
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: June 1, 2006

... "We in the ministers' cabinet condemn this crime and demand the coalition forces show the reasons behind this massacre," said the Iraqi deputy prime minister. Salam al-Zaubai, one of the most powerful Sunni Arabs in the new government ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/world/middleeast/01cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&ex=1149393600&en=d78ab2c471058406&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin


Sumaidaie: Marines shot my cousin
We must 'remove the bad apples,' new Iraqi ambassador says

... SUMAIDAIE: Well, that was not a battle at all. Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them ...

SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self-defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent -- I mean, I know the boy. He was a second-year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.

Totally unbelievable. And, in fact, they had no weapon in the house. They had one weapon which belonged to the school where his father was a headmaster. And it had no ammunition in it. And he led them into the room to show it to them ...

SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing ...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/30/cnna.sumaidaie/index.html


Yeah, let's not "make too much" of this, cuz no normal person would get upset if a bunch of foreigners arrived and started killing his/her friends and neighbors ...