Iraqi Commander Says, "We Didn't Find a Mosque" (TIME.com:Exclusive)

[norml]

Iraqis inspect the explosion site after the controversial weekend raid northeast of Baghdad

Web Exclusive| World
Exclusive: Iraqi Commander Says, "We Didn't Find a Mosque"

After a bloody raid against anti-U.S. militias in Baghdad, the war of words rages on

By MICHAEL WARE/BAGHDAD

Posted Wednesday, Mar. 29, 2006


When is a mosque not a mosque? Under U.S. military rules of engagement it's when it's used to house weapons, hostages and gunmen firing on American-backed Iraqi special forces. So it was in Sunday's explosive raid in a Baghdad quarter controlled by a Shi'ite, anti-American militia. Primed to bust up a vicious kidnapping cell linked to an insurgent group, Iraqi commandos and elite counterterrorism force members, with their U.S. counterparts in a supporting role, swooped on a target building they insist was bristling with armed fighters. By the time they'd left a hostage had been rescued, 16 men were dead, three wounded, and 18 taken prisoner. But what followed took everyone by surprise.

In the 30 minutes it took the soldiers to drive back to their heavily fortified compound their raid was in the spotlight, splashing across television with claims that the 16 men had been butchered as they gathered prayerfully in a mosque. Soon pictures showed bloodied bodies broken and prone over prayer mats, without a weapon in sight (U.S. army photos showed the exact opposite; dead men, weapons draped, not a prayer mat to be seen). Any military success the men of the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 1st Iraqi Special Operations Forces Brigade had was quickly swamped by a political and propaganda firestorm.

While Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a line of U.S. generals hit the airwaves to deny the allegations and counter that the images had been staged, no one had heard from the men on the ground who'd stormed the complex, nor from the man the world was being told had been freed. That is until today. In a palace complex deep within a U.S. base, the Iraqi commander who led the raid and the liberated hostage both spoke to TIME, giving their first public accounts of that day's fateful events and largely confirming the U.S. claims.

"We didn't find a mosque," says the Iraqi special forces commander, striking deep at the heart of the allegations against his men. "We only killed men who were armed and firing at us." Though the building has been through several incarnations in past years—from political party branch under Saddam to an office space to what is said to have been a school—local leaders claim it is now a hussaniyah, a Shi'ite mosque,and should have had protected status.


snip


http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1178353,00.html

[The Magistrate]

1. Under The Geneva Conventions, Sir

A religious bulding actually in use as a weapons depot and firing point enjoys no protection.

[seriousstan]

2. You are a thread killer using fact like that.

[IndianaGreen]

4. You believe them?

After all the lies these pathological liars have told, you still believe them?

[The Magistrate]

6. That Is A Seperate Issue, My Friend

But irregulars in particular often take shelter where they feel some onus will come to rest on their opposition if it attacks them in that location. If it were my lot to be an insurgent commander there, a mosque would be pretty high on my list of places to hole up in....

[Skip Intro]

7. and if I were an invading/occupying power attacking places of worship,

I'd seek to convince all that enemies (insurgents) were targeted.

and...

[Kagemusha]

9. It may enjoy no protection, but it is still a religious building.

The Iraqi commander and the Americans can yell all they want that "it's not a religious building to us". That doesn't mean it's not a religious building to *them*, that is, the Shiites. Trying to force "our" definition onto them is, propaganda-wise, stupid and self-defeating.

That earlier thread mentioning the "little reality jab" line, well.. I'm not sure what that'll translate to in Arabic, but nothing good, I'm sure.

[AzDar]

14. The Geneva Conventions...I believe that 'quaint' little set of rules

went out the window some time ago with this Administration.
We'll have none of that here.....

[IndianaGreen]

3. I don't believe a word that comes out of the US military

They are no better than the Waffen SS!

[qazplm]

13. wow

glad to know you think the thousands of liberal military members like me are no better than the Waffen SS.

[K-W]

16. The military lies regardless of you or any other liberals within it.

It simply isnt a reliable source of information. That isnt to say that people in the military cant be trusted, but that official statements and reports from the military should be treated with skepticism considering their track record.

[HuffleClaw]

5. they attempted a badly executed coverup of a massacre

what else are they gonna claim? i EXPECT lies from the military. there's a REASON they've been routinely 'detaining' journalists over there, its because their evildoings are being exposed.

[DLnyc]

8. This story (the Time story) has a strange odor

First of all,

--
In the 30 minutes it took the soldiers to drive back to their heavily fortified compound their raid was in the spotlight, splashing across television with claims that the 16 men had been butchered as they gathered prayerfully in a mosque. Soon pictures showed bloodied bodies broken and prone over prayer mats, without a weapon in sight
==

So in 30 minutes somebody rushed in, rearranged everything and got the footage on TV? And where were the US and Iraqi forces during this time? They just drove off and left the scene, with 16 dead bodies, unwatched?

Secondly:

--
As an American officer conceded, echoing many before over the past three years, in the propaganda game "the enemy information operations machine is very sophisticated, they're constantly beating us to the punch".
--

If loosely organized competing gangs of militias has a more sophisticated propaganda machine than FOX, TIME, the RNC, Karl Rove financed by 100's of billioins of dollars, then something doesn't quite add up.

Third:
--
When is a mosque not a mosque? Under U.S. military rules of engagement it's when it's used to house weapons, hostages and gunmen firing on American-backed Iraqi special forces. So it was in Sunday's explosive raid in a Baghdad quarter controlled by a Shi'ite, anti-American militia. Primed to bust up a vicious kidnapping cell linked to an insurgent group, Iraqi commandos and elite counterterrorism force members, with their U.S. counterparts in a supporting role, swooped on a target building they insist was bristling with armed fighters. By the time they'd left a hostage had been rescued, 16 men were dead, three wounded, and 18 taken prisoner. But what followed took everyone by surprise.
--

When the entire lead paragraph doesn't list a single source, sorry, but I've learned to assume this is stenography, not journalism.

I have no idea what happened in this building. The Iraqi PM (Jaafri?) got angry and demanded a top-level full-scale investigation. The American ambassador told him to go to hell and now an MSM magazine prints a funny smelling story. If the US had agreed to an investigation, I would be more interested in their story. As it is, I assume somethings f'd up.

[w4rma]

10. All I know is that we shouldn't be over there in the first place.

There wouldn't even be a controversy if we weren't over there.

I'm sure a heck not going to go into he said, she said B.S.

[oblivious]

11. U.S. raid on Shiite shrine served as a warning

The U.S. military was trying to send a "little reality jab" to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr when American and Iraqi troops raided a Shiite community center and shrine over the weekend, says a top U.S. military official.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060330/30natsec.htm

[oblivious]

12. Shite govt alliance says they were unarmed.

Storm Over Iraq Mosque Raid
Agencies
BAGHDAD, 28 March 2006 — Iraq’s ruling Shiite alliance yesterday demanded US forces return control of security to Iraqis after what it called the cold-blooded killing of unarmed people in a Baghdad mosque during a US-Iraqi raid.

...But government-run Iraqi media have portrayed the operation as a US raid on unarmed worshippers. The building is not a traditional mosque but a former Baath party compound used by Shiites for prayers and other religious events and is known locally as the Mustafa Mosque.

President Jalal Talabani said those responsible must be punished. “I called the American ambassador yesterday and we decided to form an Iraqi-American committee to investigate the attack. I will personally supervise, and we will learn who was responsible. Those who are behind this attack must be brought to justice and punished,” Talabani said.

Baghdad Gov. Hussein Tahan said the local government had cut ties to the US military and diplomatic mission “because of the cowardly attack on the Mustafa Mosque.”
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=79890&d=28&m=3&y=2006

Trust exposed in Baghdad raid
Tue Mar 28, 2006 7:30 PM GMT163

...But Sadr's group and officials in Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Dawa party have blamed the Americans. The security minister publicly stated that not 16 but 37 people died.

"I think this incident is a U.S. message addressed to everyone, in which they say they are still the number one player in town," said Hazim al-Naimi a political analyst from Baghdad's Mustansiriya University.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-03-28T183005Z_01_FRI863484_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-USA-CONTROL.xml

[Ms. Clio]

15. "U.S. army photos showed the exact opposite"

dead men, weapons draped, not a prayer mat to be seen)"

Are they stopping to photograph everything before they leave the scene? Is that the usual procedure?

[gratuitous]

17. I still have an impertinent question

This story, told and retold and refined over the last five days, the only thing that seems undisputed is 16 bodies were on the floor. Dead.

Now, all other considerations aside, how is it that the American-backed Iraqi forces killed 16 and didn't sustain so much as a hangnail? And considering those two facts, 16 dead on one side, nobody dead or even wounded on the other, what is a reasonable conclusion to draw?

1. Gawd is totally behind the American-backed Iraqi forces and protected them with a Divine Shield.

2. The 16 dead guys were remarkably poor shots.

3. Maybe we're not getting quite all the facts.

Hmmm. That's a real dome-scratcher, that one is.

[xdeathstarx]

18. Not really...

Considering the assault was let an elite Iraqi police unit who are HIGHLY trained. And were backed by U.S. Special Forces (possibly "delta").

They were engaged by the Medhi Militia. Which are VERY poorly trained. Even the BADR corps have kicked their butts in the past. Jiesh Al-Medhi are horrible fighters. But are expert propagandists.

This raid went exactly like the Iraqi commander said. It was a Medhi Militia safehouse where they stored illegal weapons, and Sunni hostages.

Yes, Sadr and Medhi are pissed. But they are not capable of fighting a winning battle. Najaf is proof of that.

From an insider (hehe), this isnt the first time this has happened in recent months. We still clash with the Medhi Militia, but the Iraqi government doesn't want you to know that. Nor does the U.S. Govenment. Why? Because Sadr guys are in the Government. This makes them look very bad.

[gratuitous]

19. Sorry; I need more than your anonymous word

Got a link for any of these assertions?

[xdeathstarx]

20. The link that started this thread?

I know this comes off as...propaganda on my part, but how's it's being reported, is how it happened.

Other than that, no. More will come out about it if the Sadr side keeps claiming we killed innocent worshipers. But I bet the story will be dropped as Iraqis who were witness start to speak out.

[gratuitous]

23. A discrepancy in the two accounts

You claim that the Sadr forces are very poorly trained; the Time article says that the building was "bristling with armed fighters." I have absolutely no training whatsoever in weaponry, but if I had a gun and a bunch of guys coming toward me, I'll bet I could hit one of them before I was killed.

The military has also issued several different statements over the last five days, variously counting the number dead as between a dozen and three dozen. They seem to have settled on 16 for now.

As I said, it seems that there's quite a bit about this story that doesn't ring true from either side, and considering that one side is counting 16 dead and the other doesn't have a scratch, it beggars belief that the military's story is accurate, especially considering the military's track record in terms of giving out accurate information up to this point.

[xdeathstarx]

24. I hear ya

There's alot of conflicting information.

But the official report I read, said something like 19 dead. A couple Iraqi Security forces wounded.

But really, Medhi may be well armed, but they cant win a firefight worth crap.

[Ms. Clio]

26. self delete

[Ms. Clio]

21. Oh, good, maybe you can answer my question

Is it standard procedure to photograph the results of every raid?

[xdeathstarx]

25. Yes

Especially is there was damage from anyside.

But that'll change FAST if you're in a firefight.

With that said, they did take pictures. They'll probably release them later if Sadr doesnt back down. But like I said, Medhi KNOWS they're wrong. And this makes the Iraqi Government look bad. So, they US may hold these pictures just to make the Government look good.

*shurgs*

[Ms. Clio]

27. Nobody will believe them without the pix, though

The whole thing is just too hinky.

[xdeathstarx]

28. Well...

The Iraqi people outside of the Sadr fanbase, know the truth.

Outside of Sadr city, the Medhi militia is not very favored. Even in Sadr city, the fanbase consists of teenage boys and 20-somethings only.

We can barely look at a mosque without fear of reprocussion. A few weeks back after the Sammarra shrine was hit, we were out while mosques were beng attacked by the Medhi Militia. We couldnt even go in to help anyone who might be hurt, with fear of over-stepping our bounds.

So, this is a VERY touchy subject here. It's a pretty straightforward situation though. But the Medhi guys played their cards right. I gotta give them credit.

[Ms. Clio]

22. "Expert propagandists"

Better than the Pentagon, do you think?

[oblivious]

30. No, the number of bodies is also in dispute: 16 vs 37

But Sadr's group and officials in Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Dawa party have blamed the Americans. The security minister publicly stated that not 16 but 37 people died.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-03-28T183005Z_01_FRI863484_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-USA-CONTROL.xml

[The_Casual_Observer]

29. Nowhere are there any pictures of the weapons cache.

Just a lot of talk.

The fact that they keep harping this one tells me they are guilty as hell.