Re: US General admits Samarra lies

(pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> He admitted that the one resistance fighter now confirmed in custody
> was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding
> colonel in Samarra earlier. 
> 
> "Some of those earlier reports might have been a bit off," Kimmitt
> said 
> 
> 

Reminds me of the "body counts" they did in Vietnam. They would
interview US soldiers after a confrontation, and would take "I shot
something behind the bushes and it went down" as a confirmed kill. If
two US soldiers shot and killed a particular enemy in battle, the kill
could easily be double-counted.

This just sounds like another Justice Department PR move..."See! We're
winning! We killed 48, no...no...54 of them!"


> 
> 
> Samarra clash toll still a mystery 
> Dec. 2, 2003 
> 
> The US military has vowed to continue aggressive tactics after saying
> it killed 54 Iraqis following an ambush, but commanders admitted they
> had no proof to back up their claims. 
> 
> The only corpses at Samarra's hospital were those of civilians,
> including two elderly Iranian visitors and a child. 
> 
> A top military commander acknowledged on Monday that the toll was
> based entirely on estimates gleaned from troop debriefings and that US
> soldiers had not recovered a single body from the scene of Sunday?s
> clashes. 
> 
> Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt estimated the number of dead in Samarra
> at 54, along with 22 wounded, saying they were all resistance
> fighters. He also said one person was detained. 
> 
> He admitted that the one resistance fighter now confirmed in custody
> was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding
> colonel in Samarra earlier. 
> 
> "Some of those earlier reports might have been a bit off," Kimmitt
> said 
> 
> "Are you asking me to produce (them)?" asked Colonel Fredrick
> Rudesheim, who heads the 3rd Combat Brigades that was involved in the
> clashes, when questioned by reporters about the absence of any
> fighters' bodies at Samarra's single hospital or on the city's
> streets. 
> 
> Challenged about what happened to the bodies of the 54 said to have
> been killed, Kimmitt said: "I would suspect that the enemy would have
> carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base
> was." 
> 
> Asked about reports from senior police and hospital officials in the
> town of only eight civilians killed and dozens more wounded, the US
> general insisted: "We have no such reports whether from medical
> authorities or police." 
> 
> But a medic at Samarra hospital said the bodies of - eight civilians
> including a woman and a child - were received at the hospital. 
> 
> Hospital director Abd Tawfiq said "more than 60 people wounded by
> gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the
> hospital". 
> 
> And ambulance driver Abd al-Munaim Muhammad said he had not ferried
> any fighters wounded or killed and wearing the black Fidayin outfit
> which US soldiers claimed their assailants wore. 
> 
> "If I had seen bodies, I would have picked them up. It's not like the
> Americans would have done it," he said. 
> 
> "If the death toll had reached that announced by the Americans, the
> atmosphere in Samarra would be quite different," he added. 
> 
> +
> 
> "The power of accurate observation is called cynicism 
> by those who have not got it." - G. B. Shaw 
>  
>  
> The First Church of Common Sense
> 
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> 
>  Cowboys and Idiots: The Reagan Administration
> Ronnies' "Brave freedom fighters" are now Bushs'
> "evildoers" who "hate our freedoms".
> http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/reagan.html
> 
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