Who knew/knows about 'condolence' payments?

[babylonsister]

This is aged, but I've never heard about this. :shrug:

Condolence payments to Iraqis soar
Military gave nearly $20m to families of civilians

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | June 8, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The amount of cash the US military has paid to families of Iraqi civilians killed or maimed in operations involving American troops skyrocketed from just under $5 million in 2004 to almost $20 million last year, according to Pentagon financial data.

The dramatic spike in what's known as condolence payments -- distributed to Iraqi families whose loved ones were caught in US crossfire or victimized during US ground and air assaults -- suggests that American commanders made on-the-spot restitution far more frequently, according to congressional aides and officials familiar with a special fund at the disposal of military officers in Iraq.

Defense Department officials maintain that the payments -- which officials said range from a few hundred dollars for injuries such as a severed limb to $2,500 for the death of a relative -- mirror a local custom commonly known as ``solatia," in which families receive financial compensation for damages or human losses. They stressed that the payments shouldn't be seen as an admission of guilt or responsibility.

But amid reports that US Marines paid $2,500 per victim after dozens of civilians were killed on Nov. 19 in the town of Haditha -- killings now engulfed by allegations of a massacre -- the fourfold increase in condolence payments raises new questions about the extent to which Iraqi civilians have been the victims of US firepower.

The Haditha firefight is the focus of two US military investigations to determine if Marines, enraged by the death of a comrade from a roadside bomb, may have taken revenge by executing two dozen Iraqi civilians, including women and young children, and then tried to cover it up. In his first public comments about the killings, Marine Commandant Michael Hagee, the Corps' top general, acknowledged yesterday that the evidence being reviewed includes a set of photos of the victims taken by a Marine intelligence team immediately after the killings.

The payments to victims' families in Haditha are part of what is generally considered a common US military practice in Iraq. But Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is pushing for a broader investigation into condolence payments.

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