May 19, 2004

U.S. Disputes Strike Report on Iraqi Wedding Party

U.S. military officials disputed suggestions that an American helicopter struck a wedding party in western Iraq on Wednesday and said coalition forces staged an attack against suspected foreign fighters.

Arab television and The Associated Press aired video showing the bodies of small children in a truck full of bodies and people digging graves as they quoted witnesses and Iraqi officials who discussed the attack.

But senior military officials in Washington said U.S. and coalition forces conducted a strike on "anti-coalition vehicles" along the Iraqi-Syrian border.

According to the military, at 3 a.m. local time Wednesday, coalition forces conducted an operation against a suspected foreign fighter safe house in the open desert. The house was 25 kilometers from the Syrian border, 85 kilometers southwest of Husaybah, military officials said.

Coalition forces came under hostile fire and called for support from the air. After the strike, coalition forces recovered numerous weapons, foreign passports, a SATCOM radio and two million Iraqi and Syrian dinars, military officials said.

The attack killed about 40 people, officials said.

A Coalition Press Information Center official said that since it was carried out during a raid on a suspected safe house, the air strike would therefore be "within the rules of engagement."

That official reiterated that the objective was a suspected hideout, and had no information about a wedding party.
[...]
In July 2002, Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province. An investigative report released by the U.S. Central Command said the airstrike was justified because American planes had come under fire.

Yep, this incident is exactly like the one in Afghanistan...almost word for word, except for changing the names and the places.
Why would war-torn Iraqis have a bridal party, complete with guns fired in the air, in the open desert with children and women up at 3:00 AM?
(I don't believe we found that our forces had fired on a wedding party in Afghanistan either.)
And the Syrian border is a hot spot--a lot of bad stuff and bad guys have been making their way into Iraq from their Baathist neighbor.
Of course, the "story" that our soldiers had fired on a wedding party killing women and children was featured by al-Reuters. Who else?
They're the Islamist terrorists chief enablers in the media.
Is it any wonder that our troops might NOT have wanted to give them the "red carpet treatment?"
There's got to be some kind of price for reporting lies as fact, particularly in wartime and particularly when you bend the truth in favor of the Enemy!
These IslamoFacists are Masters of not only terror, but of working the Media to their strategic advantage.
If it's not stories of "prison abuse" and "torture" by our guys, it's laments that we're firing on "wedding parties" or "ambulances," all of which are cleverly designed to tie the hands of our soldiers on the battlefield.