U.S. Troops Accused of Killing Iraqi Couple in Attack on House; Kurdish Pa

[papau]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZUP7H5PD.html

U.S. Troops Accused of Killing Iraqi Couple in Attack on House; Kurdish Party Office Attacked
By Ali Ahmed
Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. troops shelled a house after coming under fire in this hotbed of the anti-American insurgency, killing an Iraqi couple, witnesses said Wednesday.
<snip>

Footage from Associated Press Television News showed a wall of collapsed concrete bricks and two walls splattered with blood where neighbors said Ahmed Hassan Farhoud, 37, and his wife Suham Omar, 28, were sitting when the house was hit by a shell. They said the couple's five children were in bed in an adjoining room and survived unhurt.

"This is democracy? These corpses?" angry neighbor Raad Majeed asked at the hospital, gesturing to the couple's remains on gurneys covered with bloody sheets. "It's a crime against humanity."

Other neighbors, who said they were too scared of retaliation to give their names, said it appeared someone fired at the soldiers in the suburb Tuesday night, and that the troops, on a routine raid in the district, thought the fire had come from the Hassan household.
"They just brought in their tank and fired at their house from 200 meters (yards) away," Majeed said. "What did these people do wrong?"
Tuesday's attack came as coalition officials said they would become increasingly aggressive with guerrilla forces. The statement came with an announcement that the U.S.-led coalition will release 506 of its 12,800 detainees. <snip>

Elsewhere in Iraq, insurgents struck an Iraqi police vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade Tuesday night in the northern city of Kirkuk. One officer was killed and two were wounded, one seriously, police said.

Also in Kirkuk, an RPG exploded in the headquarters of the Kurdistan Socialist Party before dawn Wednesday, wounding one person but doing little damage, according to Gen. Sherko Shakir, head of the Interior Ministry in the city. <snip>

[4dsc]

1. Another sad day in Iraq

EOM!!

[truthspeaker]

2. Damn

It shouldn't take a genius to realize you cannot successfully fight guerillas with conventional warfare. Napoleon learned the lesson the hard way in Spain two hundred years ago. I thought we had learned it in Vietnam but I guess not. Come to think of it there are other lessons from Vietnam that apparently passed the neocons by: Americans are not comfortable with colonial wars; occupying a nation that doesn't want you there is demoralizing for US troops; defense contractors will rip you off; don't trust intelligence from locals with their own political agendas; don't let civilians in Washington make military decisions.

[AnnabelLee]

3. Re "don't let civilians in Washington

make military decisions", I wonder how long before we begin to hear the old saw about how "we coulda won that war if the politicians had let the army fight". Probably a few months after a Dem is elected President.:-(