LA Times: "A Grim Reminder From WikiLeaks" (Ishaqi Massacre)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-onthemedia-20110903,0,435906.column

On the Media: A grim reminder from WikiLeaks

By James Rainey
September 3, 2011

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In the document, written a dozen days after the shootout, Alston requests more information from U.S. authorities about the Ishaqi episode. From his investigation, which is not described in detail, Alston concluded that, at the end of the shootout, the "troops entered the house, handcuffed all the residents and executed all of them."

When Schofield followed up for this week's story, the U.N. official told him that he had been frustrated in 2006 when he tried to get more information from American and Iraqi officials. Alston, now a law professor at NYU, said the U.N. Human Rights Council did not have the power or will to respond when requests were ignored.

Schofield's reporting has been corroborated and a big story revived. But there is no joy in it for the journalist. He felt sickened back then at the thought that young Americans could have visited such horror on women and small children. He stayed up late into the night after writing the story to talk through the story with colleagues, they still recall.

Schofield now writes a column and edits opinion pieces for McClatchy's Kansas City Star. But he keeps photos taken that March morning in Ishaqi in his computer. One that he can't get out of his mind shows tiny bodies wrapped in blankets.

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