Journal js7a's Journal: U.S. Shoots Iraqi Police Major Crimes Unit Chief 10
Shots to the Heart of Iraq
By Richard C. Paddock
L.A. Times Staff WriterBAGHDAD -- Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit. The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car.
At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass. Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other. The sedan's driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments.
The soldiers drove on without stopping.
This kind of shooting is far from rare in Baghdad, but the driver of the car was no ordinary casualty. He was Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit. His passengers were unarmed hitchhikers whom he was dropping off on his way to work.
"The reason they shot us is just because the Americans are reckless," the general said from his hospital bed hours after the July 6 shooting, his head wrapped in a white bandage. "Nobody punishes them or blames them...."
U.S. military officials say the troops must protect themselves by shooting the driver of any suspicious vehicle before it reaches them....
The U.S. military says it investigates all shootings by American personnel that result in death. But U.S. Brig. Gen. Don Alston, spokesman for the multinational force in Iraq, said he was unaware of any soldier disciplined for shooting a civilian at a checkpoint or in traffic. Findings are seldom made public....
On June 27, the day he turned 49, Salah Jmor arrived in Baghdad to visit his family. His father, Abdul-Rihman Jmor, is the chief of a Kurdish clan that numbers more than 20,000. Salah had left Iraq 25 years ago for Switzerland, where he earned a doctorate in international relations and eventually became a Swiss citizen. For a decade, he represented Iraqi Kurds at the United Nations Office at Geneva. In 1988, he helped call the world's attention to Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons on Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja and the massacre of at least 100,000 Kurds in what is known as the Anfal campaign....
The morning after he arrived in Baghdad, he decided to go with his younger brother, architect Abdul-Jabbar Jmor, to his office. Abdul-Jabbar, 38, drove his Opel hatchback down the eight-lane Mohammed Qasim highway through central Baghdad....
The brothers were in the fast lane as a U.S. military convoy of three Humvees was entering the highway from the Gailani onramp. Neither of them saw the soldiers, Abdul-Jabbar said.
Abruptly, Salah slumped over into his brother's lap. Abdul-Jabbar asked what was wrong and then saw blood pouring from Salah's head. There was a single bullet hole in the windshield.
He saw the convoy moving ahead as he pulled over to the side of the road. He said he had seen no signal to slow down and heard no warning shot.
The soldiers turned around and came back a few minutes later. One said he was sorry, Abdul-Jabbar said. Together they waited more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive....
Abdul-Jabbar said he and his family had supported the U.S. troops when they first invaded Iraq, but no longer.
"This kind of incident makes people hate the Americans more and more," he said. "They don't care about the lives of the people. Each day they make new enemies."
There is a strong tradition of revenge in Iraq's tribal culture. The killing of such a prominent clan member could have triggered a bloodbath that would claim 200 lives, said the patriarch, Abdul-Rihman. But the Jmors, a well-educated family of doctors and engineers, say they want the judicial process to hold Salah's killer accountable.
"People say if they kill my brother, I have to kill one of them," Abdul-Jabbar said. "But I believe in justice. I can't just go kill them. The United States says it is the leader of justice in the world. Let us see that...."
A recent case highlighted by the Iraqi government in its criticism of the U.S. was the June 24 killing of Yasser Salihee, 30, an Iraqi special correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers. Salihee, a physician, had taken a rare day off and planned to take his wife and daughter swimming. He went to get gasoline and was returning home at midmorning. By then, U.S. troops were conducting a military operation in his neighborhood. It appears he did not see them until it was too late.
The route he chose was not blocked off and there was no sign warning motorists to halt, witnesses say. As he neared the scene of the military operation, a U.S. Army sniper fired at his car. One bullet hit a tire. The other hit Salihee in the forehead. That bullet also severed fingers on his right hand, indicating he was holding up at least one of his hands at the time he was killed. U.S. officials are investigating the shooting.
Salihee's widow, Raghad al Wazzan, said she accepted the American soldiers' presence when they first arrived in Iraq because "they came and liberated us." She sometimes helped them at the hospital where she works as a doctor. But not anymore.
"Now, after they killed my husband, I hate them," she said. "I want to blow them all up."
To any who still thinks that we need to stay in order to "finish what we started," I say this: You are a deluded fool. We are starting so many things that we have no hope of finishing every day we stay.
U.S. out of Iraq now!
But...but.. (Score:2)
I like the idea that troops are driving by and spraying people with gunfire, then not even stopping, WTF is up with that? Yeah, yeah, I understand "they may have been in danger" but were they ever going to return?
Re:But...but.. (Score:2)
Even got 'em in a trophy case, over the mantel!
Fatal Rules of Engagement (Score:2)
You may have already seen this link, British advice about the American Rules of Engagement, [telegraph.co.uk] when I wrote about it in my journal. [slashdot.org] But I would like to make sure your readers get a chance to read it. Basically it says the British experience, from Ulster, and elsewhere, is that a graduated response to perceived risk is much more acceptable to occupied people than the policy of responding to each perceived threat with overwhelming firepower.
It is interesting to compare the reaction of Brits t
Re:Fatal Rules of Engagement (Score:2)
Re:Fatal Rules of Engagement (Score:2)
The solution is obvious. (Score:2)
Re:I Disagree With Your Conclusion (Score:2)
This isn't just any old time that a military effort didn't work. This one was not only based on lies, it has been detracting from the stated goals. It's a boondoggle.
Our military is needed in Afghanistan, where drug profits are enriching the Taliban. We have absolutely no business in Iraq, and we never did. I'm not opposed to addressing the problem with our rules of engagement, but I believe that we should pull out and turn our areas of control over to
Re:I Disagree With Your Conclusion (Score:1)
Re:I Disagree With Your Conclusion (Score:1)