Intresting to see the american brigade coming out to defend its dishonoured US military once again!
Are you not the same people who complain about conspiracy theories now you coming out with a nice one of your own, what you think your unintelligent military dont commit masscres and abuses of civillians now!
You would belive anything that the US propoganda machine tells you get out of Hollywood and take a look at the real world!
No one believes the American occupiers anymore. After all are these people not the one’s who said there was no torture and killings of civilians going on Iraq? Now we find out it is common American practice across Iraq, and other parts of the world where the US military operates.
**AP: Video Shows Iraq Wedding Celebration **
A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck. The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters. “There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration,” Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. “There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too.”
But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent. The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car — decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up. An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video — which runs for several hours. APTN also traveled to Mogr el-Deeb, 250 miles west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site. A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking “ATU-35,” similar to those on U.S. bombs. A water tanker truck can be seen in both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom.
The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers’ laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding. As expected, women are out of sight - but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. Al-Ali was buried in Baghdad on Thursday. Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud — his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed. As the musicians played, young men milled about, most dressed in traditional white robes. Young men swayed in tribal dances to the monotonous tones of traditional Arabic music. Two children — a boy and a girl — held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and they appear only in distant glimpses.
Kimmitt said U.S. troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria. The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis. Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although a “handful of women” — perhaps four to six — were “caught up in the engagement.” “They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft,” he told reporters Friday. However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.
Four days after the attack, the memories of the survivors remain painful — as are their injuries. Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her five-year-old son, Hamza, started running. Her 15-year-old son, Ali, sprinted alongside her. They managed to run for several yards when she fell — her leg fractured. “Hamza was yelling, ‘mommy,’” Shihab, recalled. “Ali said he was hurt and that he was bleeding. That’s the last time I heard him.” Then another shell fell and injured Shihab’s left arm. “Hamza fell from my hand and was gone. Only Yousef stayed in my arms. Ali had been hit and was killed. I couldn’t go back,” she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi. Her arm was in a cast. She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal — who had caught up with her — hid in a bomb crater. “We were bleeding from 3 a.m. until sunrise,” Shihab said. Soon American soldiers came. One of them kicked her to see if she was alive, she said.
“I pretended I was dead so he wouldn’t kill me,” said Shihab. She said the soldier was laughing. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: “'No, stop,” said Shihab. Fourteen-year-old Moza, Shihab’s stepdaughter, lies on another bed of the hospital room. She was hurt in the leg and cries. Her relatives haven’t told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead. “I fear she’s dead,” Moza said of her mother. “I’m worried about her.” Moza was sleeping on one side of the porch next to her sisters Siham, Subha and Zohra while her mother slept on the other end. There were many others on the porch, her cousins, stepmothers and other female relatives. When the first shell fell, Moza and her sisters, Subha, Fatima and Siham ran off together. Moza was holding Subha’s hand. “I don’t know where Fatima and my mom were. Siham got hit. She died. I saw Zohra’s head gone. I lost consciousness,” said Moza, covering her mouth with the end of her headscarf. Her sister Iqbal, lay in pain on the bed next to her. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital, in the same room with two-year-Khoolood. Her small body was bandaged and a tube inserted in her side drained her liver. Her ankle was bandaged. A red ribbon was tied to her curly hair. Only she and her older brother, Faisal, survived from their immediate family. Her parents and four sisters and brothers were all killed. In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef’s extended family died — most of them children and women, the family said.
Ya Allah...
Thank yuo for posting that article Malik, I was about to do that myself.
I dont think any kind of proof would matter here though, whether its a personal video, or one shot by AP cameramen. The american mindset is mired in deep arrogance, where they are hell bent on justifying every war crime under the sun. Their refusal to not have joined the international war crimes court is paying off big dividends.
What I dont understand is how american forces(sources) are always able extract a passport, of all the things in the world, from the worst of wreckages. First it was the the Atta passport from the WTC rubble, and now foreign passports are recovered from this mess as well. Seems like a code of conduct for terrorists the world over....always carry your passports, and make sure they are fireproof and indestructible.
The poor child has been left an orphan, after her ENTIRE family were slaughtered in the American attack on the wedding party.
[thumb=H]wedding12327_9428527.JPG[/thumb]
*Iraqi girl Kholood, 2, sits on a bed in the hospital in Ramadi, 110 km west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday May 23, 2004. Kholood was injured by shrapnel into her back when U.S. helicopters fired on a wedding party in the remote desert near the border with Syria, killing more than 40 people, Wednesday May 19. Kholood lost her parents and four of her brothers and sisters during the attack. *(AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
Can anyone with any dignity say this little girl is a terrorist?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Malik73: *
" Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."
[/QUOTE]
My goodness can someone please hit this General with a plank of wood to knock some sense into him!
I guess we should`nt really be surprised the lies are coming out thick and fast out of the Pentagon lie machine its nothing new and has been happening for years.
Americans and their actions are unbelieveable; so totally unbelieveable.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Wane: *
Americans and their actions are unbelieveable; so totally unbelieveable.
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. But many American's will defend the Saddam-like actions of the US military to the hilt.
Funny, all of the "wedding videos" recovered were filmed in broad daylight. Was the wedding still on at 3am? Maybe, or maybe not....
I don't think I've been to wedding yet that hasn't gone on until at least dawn.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
Funny, all of the "wedding videos" recovered were filmed in broad daylight. Was the wedding still on at 3am? Maybe, or maybe not....
[/QUOTE]
Yeah funny how you keep coming out with same lame excuses for your american forces! And keep avoiding the obvious
What you want next night vision footage or maybe the cameraman should have had prior intellegence that he was about to be bombed!
We all waiting for your next excuse for the occupation forces not!
Seems we are really happy to believe that all this was was a wedding of complete innocents, and not some bad people who had innocents in thier midst....
^ yep you got that right. cuz the 'bad people have celebrations too' line is just too funny, and more importantly from general kimmit. unbelievable.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Thap: *
I don't think I've been to wedding yet that hasn't gone on until at least dawn.
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. But people ignorant of foreign cultures, and used to referring to non-American's as "evil" or "bad" will never understand these sort of things.
Are you related to Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt ? 
*A HOME video released yesterday appears to back claims the US bombed an Iraqi wedding party, killing up to 45 people. The tape shows the bride arriving in a white pickup truck before being ushered into a house by a group of women..*Film backs tale of wedding massacre](http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9653243%255E663,00.html) Herald Sun, 25 May 2004
Does the video show American planes and soldiers too? If not, it has no relevance.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Imdad Ali: *
Does the video show American planes and soldiers too? If not, it has no relevance.
[/QUOTE]
What a silly question! The wedding video was filmed during the day showing the ceremony.. Was the cameraman supposed to be filming at 3 am when the US bombing allegedly took place and when everyone was asleep!! According to eyewitnesses over 45 were killed including the cameraman.
I suppose the American regime will only admit that they slaughtered innoccents at this wedding, when pictures taken by it’s own soldier killers (a la Abu Ghraib) are published?
Love it. Here is a post from a web site called Soldiers for the Truth. Just for reference, this web site is largely ANTI-Pentagon, and was instrumental in the release of the Abu Graib photos to CBS.
Guest Column: The Desert Wedding That Wasn’t
Editor’s Note: The following memorandum was sent by a Pentagon contact to Col. David Hackworth regarding the incident on May 19 in western Iraq where U.S. forces attacked a large group of people at a remote farmhouse. Many news media outlets have prominently reported claims from some Iraqis charging that the group was a wedding party, although CENTCOM has flatly denied that. The officer’s name has been removed for his own protection.
Hack:
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
“Wedding Party” Details
Just reviewed a classified brief on the supposed wedding - no way it was. Here are some unclass details I can provide (brief had lots of pictures to back up the details):
Weddings traditionally held on Thursdays in Iraq to take advantage of Friday as a day of rest - raid took place on Tuesday night.
Only permanent dwelling at the site held large stocks of food, bedding, medical supplies (lots of these - was the wedding going to be a cage match of some sort or were the caterers just bad cooks?), ammunition and weapons, as well as an apparent document forging set up. Meat was still frozen solid - not prepared for a wedding feast and there were no stocks of dishes, plates, etc.
Contrary to media reports, no “Nuptial Tent” was found and a 1KM area around the site was searched - any further away than that would be just too far for the catering staff to walk carrying all those huge platters of food - against union rules.
No evidence of any means of support for the house (like sheep farming which is most common in that area). All evidence pointed to a smuggler way station - fit perfectly the description of several others found in the past.
“Wedding guests” (deceased of course) were almost all men of military age, only a couple of women, no elders at all and only one child (wounded) noted.
All dressed as city dwellers, not Bedouins who would hold a wedding at such a location. All of the deceased were sterilized, as in none had any form of ID on them at all. Only IDs found were in a nice neat stack inside the house - and then quite a few less of those than there were people at the site.
Weapons were varied and included RPGs (they really suck when you fire them up in the air for celebration), there were also military binoculars (when they separate the men and women they have to look at each other with binos I guess), and IED making material (party favors?).
Lots of clothing prepackaged in pants and shirt sets (guerranimals for guerrillas).
There were also no gifts, no decorations, no food set out or left over, and the good bit of money recovered was all in the pockets of the “guests” (maybe they were just cheap guests).
I strongly suspect that after their Foreign Fighter way station got whacked, they tried to set it up to look like what happened in Afghanistan when a wedding was actually hit due to celebratory firing being taken for ground fire by orbiting aircraft. I also would not put it past the scumbags to sweep a local village for appropriately aged “guests” to kill and display for the TV cameras. Our BDA assessment was made by people on the site just after the schwacking and they took their time to count and exploit the site [for intelligence data]. This is just speculation on my part.
Bottom line assessment: Good hit - no wedding. These were foreign fighters that had just crossed into Iraq and got an early trip to Paradise and the martyrdom hall of fame.
Thought it was important to get this word out as much as possible as you won’t see any of this on CNN.
Take care,
[Name deleted]
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=508&rnd=873.6249202916435