Doubts raised over US troops' battle with guerrillas (Samarra - NZ take)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=562588&storyID=3538050

07.12.2003
By PHIL REEVES
SAMARRA - Nearly a week has elapsed since the American military issued the startling claim - puzzling even some within its own ranks - that its troops killed 54 guerrillas during running gunfights Iraq's Sunni town of Samarra.

Official versions described how dozens of Fedayeen guerrillas wearing red or black chequered headscarves and dark shirts and trousers attacked troops in the bloodiest engagement since the US-led occupation of Iraq last April - and lost.

Repeated visits to the scene, interviews with Iraqi civilians and US soldiers, and close inspection of the battle damage by scores of correspondents have failed to eliminate several troubling and crucial questions. Where are the bodies? Did they exist? Or was this death toll - as some suspect - a fabrication which was intended to generate positive headlines for the US, after a disastrous weekend in which guerrilla attacks killed 14 foreigners, including seven Spanish intelligence officers?

All occupying armies lie, and so do their opponents. But Iraq is particularly perilous territory, given that so many millions of people believe the invasion was launched on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
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Many salient points.

shit out of the town,killed civilians and they couldn`t find the dead enemy fighters. a major screw-up that gets worse everyday. move on ,nothing to see..hand out a few medals,it will all go away.....

This sounds like a case for the American jounalist who exposed the My Lai massacre to the world, Seymour Hersch.

Wait long enough (even less than a week) and everything they say is exposed as the lie it is.

Sometimes it makes me more sick, sometimes it makes me more angry, but it always makes me more distrustful of these evil scum who have taken over our country.

I hope someday we get the media back and get to put all this info together so we can prove to every last man woman and child in this country that the terrorists are the government.

From Kuwait '91 to OKC to 9-11 to Iraq - the Bushes get richer and regular people just die.

not that it'll matter.