Trovate su Internet le Prove: i 60 morti del mercato colpa degli USA
by The Guardian Wednesday
Dalla sua colonna odierna del Rapporto Quotidiano sull'Iraq, il quotidiano
inglese informa sui misfatti della giornata. Tra l'altro, viene segnalato
con dovizia di particolari come, grazie al Web, un lettore del Guardian
abbia rintracciato le prove che il missile che ha centrato un mercato di
Baghdad mietendo 60 vittime civili era proprio americano.
Simone Cumbo
'You didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!'
A journalist's account of the killing of a car full of Iraqi civilians by US
soldiers differs widely from the official military version, says Brian
Whitaker
Tuesday April 1, 2003
The invasion forces suffered another self-inflicted disaster in the battle
for hearts and minds yesterday when soldiers from the US 3rd infantry
division shot dead Iraqi seven women and children.
The incident occurred on Route 9, near Najaf, when a car carrying 13 women
and children approached a checkpoint.
A US military spokesman says the soldiers motioned the vehicle to stop but
their signals were ignored. However, according to the Washington Post,
Captain Ronny Johnson, who was in charge of the checkpoint, blamed his own
troops for ignoring orders to fire a warning shot.
"You just fucking killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot
soon enough!", he reportedly yelled at them.
In another checkpoint incident this morning, US forces say they killed an
unarmed Iraqi driver outside Shatra.
Meanwhile it has emerged - as a result of detective work on the internet by
a Guardian reader - that the explosion in a Baghdad market which killed more
than 60 people last Friday was indeed caused by a cruise missile and not an
Iraqi anti-aircraft rocket as the US has suggested.
A metal fragment found at the scene by British journalist Robert Fisk
carried various markings, including "MFR 96214 09". This, our reader pointed
out in an email, is a manufacturer's identification number known as a "cage
code".
Cage codes can be looked up on the internet (http://www.gidm.dlis.dla.mil),
and keying in the number 96214 traces the fragment back to a plant in
McKinney, Texas, owned by the Raytheon Company.
Raytheon, whose headquarters are in Lexington, Massachusetts, aspires "to be
the most admired defence and aerospace systems supplier through world-class
people and technology", according to its website (http://www.raytheon.com).
It makes a vast array of military equipment, including the AGM-129 cruise
missile which is launched from B-52 bombers.
On the political front, two new quarrels have broken out. One centres on an
attempt by the US to set up its own inspection team to find the alleged
Iraqi weapons that United Nations inspectors did not find. The US appears
unaware that such a project will have little credibility internationally and
has pressed ahead, offering jobs to some of the UN inspectors.
The two chief UN inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the
International Atomic Energy Authority, are reportedly furious. Dr Baradei,
in remarks quoted by the BBC, insisted that the IAEA is the sole body with
legal authority to verify any nuclear programmes in Iraq.
The other row concerns the new Pentagon-controlled Iraqi government that the
US is establishing in Kuwait, with 23 ministries, each headed by an American
and with four US-appointed Iraqi advisers.
Former US general Jay Garner, who was placed in overall charge of the
"interim government", is annoyed by the efforts of Paul Wolfowitz, the
deputy defence secretary, to impose several controversial Iraqis as advisers
in the government.
They include Ahmed Chalabi, head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress,
who will be offered an advisory post in the finance ministry. Mr Chalabi was
previously convicted in his absence of a multi-million dollar banking fraud
in Jordan, though he denies the charges.
Mr Wolfowitz wants posts in other ministries to go to Mr Chalabi's nephew,
Salem, and to three of his close associates, Tamara Daghestani, Goran
Talebani and Aras Habib.
In an interview with the BBC yesterday, the British home secretary, David
Blunkett, conceded that at present the invasion forces are "seen as
villains", but he added:
"Once this is over and there is a free Iraq, with a democratic state ... the
population as a whole will say that we want a free country, we want a state
to live in where we can use our talents to the full."
The veteran American war correspondent, Peter Arnett, was sacked by NBC
television yesterday for giving an interview to an Iraqi TV journalist in
which he said the US had "misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces".
He was immediately offered a new job by a British newspaper, the Daily
Mirror, which opposes the war.
Another war-related tragedy has occurred in Israel, where two elderly
sisters were found dead - apparently suffocated - in a room that they had
made airtight against a possible Iraqi chemical attack. Three others died in
similar circumstances a fortnight ago.
On the ground in Iraq, battles continue in various locations. US forces
"testing" the southern defences of Baghdad are reportedly fighting
Republican Guards and other forces at Hindiya, some 50 miles from the
capital.
Fighting has also erupted along the Euphrates river near ancient Babylon. US
marines entered Shatra, 20 miles north of Nassiriya, after storming it with
planes, tanks and helicopter gunships, and British Royal Marines clashed
with Iraqi paramilitaries south of Basra.
Bombing of Baghdad continued overnight. Targets included the Iraqi national
Olympic committee, which is run by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday.
At least one American soldier has been reported killed at Hindiya. A British
soldier was also killed yesterday - the 26th since the war began. The
defence ministry said he died "in the course of his duties" but gave no
details.
brian.whitaker@guardian.co.uk