[Peace-discuss] always innocent

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

How can army officers investigate themselves? they will always conclude that 
they were right. 


U.S.: Troops Within Rules in Reuters Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
Filed at 2:33 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. soldiers acted within the rules on opening fire 
when they shot and killed a Reuters television cameraman last month while 
videotaping near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, a U.S. Army officer 
said Monday.

Mazen Dana, 41, was filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad when 
he was fatally shot Aug. 17 by U.S. soldiers who the military said mistook 
his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Dana, a Palestinian, was 
filming a day after a mortar attack in which six prisoners were killed and about 
60 were wounded.

Lt. Col. George Krivo, a military spokesman, said an official investigation 
concluded that ``although a regrettable incident,'' the soldiers ``acted within 
the rules of engagement.''

The U.S. Army has never publicly announced those rules, citing security of 
its soldiers, who face near-daily attack by insurgents opposed to the American 
military occupation.

Reuters said at the time that Dana's camera showed two U.S. tanks coming 
toward him. Two shots, apparently from the tanks, rang out and Dana fell to the 
ground. He was taken by a U.S. Army helicopter to hospital where he died.

Press advocacy groups Reporters Without Borders and the U.S.-based Committee 
to Protect Journalists had demanded a full investigation into the shooting.

Dana, the father of four, was the 17th journalist and the second Reuters 
cameraman killed in Iraq since the start of the war on March 20. Reuters cameraman 
Taras Protsyuk died April 8 after an American tank fired at the Palestine 
hotel in Baghdad as U.S. troops took the city. 


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