[Peace-discuss] "Shoot them all" Nam era motto returns

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

U.S. Soldiers Return Fire on Protesters
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
Filed at 7:10 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- For the second time this week, U.S. soldiers fired on 
anti-American protesters Wednesday in the city of Fallujah; the mayor said 
two people were killed and 14 wounded. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld 
became the first top Bush administration official to visit Iraq since Saddam 
Hussein's ouster.

Operating out of a palace once used by Saddam, Rumsfeld told Iraqis the 
United States is eager to return the country to their control.

``Iraq belongs to you,'' he said in a message taped for radio and television 
broadcast. ``The coalition has no intention of owning or running Iraq.''

The shooting in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, occurred less than 48 
hours after gunfire during a demonstration Monday night that hospital 
officials said killed 13 Iraqis.

About 1,000 people marched down the city's main street Wednesday to protest 
the earlier incident, stopping in front of a battalion headquarters of the 
U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division -- a former office of Saddam's Baath Party.

American officers said U.S soldiers in the compound and in a passing convoy 
opened fire after some protesters started throwing rocks and some shots were 
fired at the troops.

``The evildoers are deliberately placing at risk the good civilians,'' said 
Lt. Col. Tobin Green of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. ``These are 
deliberate actions by the enemy to use the population as cover.''

Fallujah's mayor, Taha Bedaiwi al-Alwani, said two people were killed and 14 
wounded, and he asked for an investigation and compensation for the victims. 
He added that U.S. soldiers have been asked to stay away from mosques, 
residential areas and other sensitive places; the Americans agreed to study 
the request.

``Many people believe these are occupying forces. And many of them are still 
cautious until they see their intentions,'' said al-Alwani, a former Iraqi 
exile and opponent of Saddam's regime.

Local officials in Fallujah -- a conservative Sunni Muslim city and Baath 
Party stronghold -- said they saw or heard no shooting from among the 
protesters.

The incident, coupled with the deaths Monday outside a school in Fallujah, 
are increasing tension as American forces try to keep the peace in Iraq and 
win the trust of its people.

U.S. officers met with Fallujah's mayor and local Muslims clerics in hopes of 
averting further violence. Several dozen demonstrators clustered angrily 
outside the town hall where the talks took place; ``Get out, get out,'' some 
chanted.

Emerging from the meeting, the imam of the Grand Fallujah Mosque, Jamal 
Shaqir Mahmood, said the Americans insisted the U.S. troops were needed to 
provide security, ``but the people of Fallujah told them we already have 
security.''

In the incident Monday night, U.S. Central Command said paratroopers of the 
82nd Airborne were shot at by about 25 armed civilians mixed within an 
estimated 200 protesters outside a compound troops were occupying. 
Demonstrators said no gunfire came from their ranks.

Rumsfeld, nearing the end of a trip to several Persian Gulf countries, flew 
to Baghdad after joining a British commander, Maj. Gen. Robin Brims, for a 
briefing in Basra on military operations in southern Iraq.

``A number of human beings have been liberated and they are out from under 
the heel of a vicious, brutal regime,'' Rumsfeld said. ``I'm very pleased 
that the United States and the United Kingdom worked so well together.''

In Baghdad, Rumsfeld said coalition forces are committed to restoring order 
and basic services for Iraqis and helping them form a new government. He 
asked Iraqis to tell coalition solders about former Iraqi officials and 
foreign fighters who might still be in their neighborhoods.

Rumsfeld's visit to Iraq came a day after he announced that all but 400 of 
the 5,000 U.S. troops in neighboring Saudi Arabia will leave by the end of 
the summer, marking a major shift in the American military presence in the 
Gulf region.

One of the unresolved issues confronting U.S. officials is whether Saddam's 
regime did in fact possess illegal weapons of mass destruction, as the Bush 
administration contended.

U.S. officials said Tuesday that high-ranking Iraqis now in custody are 
uniformly denying that Saddam's government had any biological, chemical or 
nuclear weapons. The officials said they believe many of the prisoners are 
lying to protect themselves.

American officials stand by their belief that Iraq possessed prohibited 
weapons and the means to make more. They have suggested that the weapons were 
well hidden or destroyed shortly before the war.

In other developments:

--Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the Iraqi lawyer who helped U.S 
commandos locate and rescue prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has been granted 
asylum in the United States.

Ridge identified the man as Mohammed al-Rehaief and said the lawyer and his 
wife and 5-year-old daughter arrived in the United States this month.

``Americans are grateful for his bravery and for his compassion,'' Ridge said 
at the National Press Club.

Lynch, a 20-year-old Army supply clerk from Palestine, W.Va., was captured 
March 23 after her 507th Maintenance Company convoy was ambushed in southern 
Iraq. She was rescued from an Iraqi hospital April 1.

--In Brussels, Belgium, lawyer Jan Fermon said a group of Iraqis will file a 
war crimes case within two weeks against the commander of U.S.-led forces in 
Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks.

Fermon claimed there were 17 ``specific incidents'' in which U.S. soldiers 
and commanders violated a 1993 Belgian war crimes law. The incidents include 
the failure of U.S. troops to prevent the looting of Baghdad hospitals and 
the alleged U.S. bombing of a Baghdad market which Iraqi officials claimed 
killed dozens of people.

After the claim is filed, a Brussels investigative magistrate will study the 
allegations to decide whether a case can be opened. U.S. Central Command said 
it had no comment at this point.