| directfiesta |
05-24-2004 05:45 PM |
'Wedding video' contradicts US denials
No surprise ... just more lies from this US administration....
"bad people have celebrations too".
How simplistic is the american population ??? Kindergarden level or what... Meanwhile, your Bush is performing another of his demented speaches laced with lies...
Shame on America!
Quote:
A videotape emerged today apparently showing the wedding party in Iraq that survivors say was attacked by US warplanes last week in raids that killed up to 45 people.
The US military has admitted launching air strikes at targets near the Syrian border last Tuesday but insists it attacked a safehouse for foreign insurgents and that there was no evidence of a wedding.
The top US military spokesman in Iraq, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, told reporters at the weekend that there could have been some kind of celebration but said "bad people have celebrations too".
He insisted there were "no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration".
However, the video obtained by APTN - which lasts for several hours - shows a large wedding party, and separate footage shot by AP cameramen the following day shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans, and brightly coloured beddings used for celebrations scattered around a bombed-out tent. There were also fragments of ordnance that appeared to have US markings.
An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video.
The survivors say dozens of missiles were launched lat at night after the festivities had ended and that women and children were among those killed, as were the bride and groom.
The US military has launched an investigation into the raids on the village of Mogr el-Deeb, which is about five miles from the Syrian border, but maintains that the evidence suggests it was a safehouse for insurgents coming over the border.
Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed and the AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 whom relatives said had died. Brig Gen Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although he admitted that a "handful of women" - perhaps four to six - were "caught up in the engagement".
"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters last week.
Bodies of five women were filmed by APTN the survivors took them to the nearest town of Ramadi for burial last week. The dead included video cameraman Yasser Shawkat Abdullah who had been hired to record the festivities.
In the scenes he allegedly filmed before he died, a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car, which is decorated with brightly coloured ribbons. Upon her arrival, she is ushered into a house by a group of women, while outside, men recline on brightly coloured silk pillows as boys dance to tribal songs.
A water tanker lorry can be seen in both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape. In the tape, the singing and dancing goes on for a long time at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and his bride Rutbah Sabah.
The men later move to the porch when darkness falls. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.
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Nice going guys... and best of luck with the coverup... and LIBERATION.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...223564,00.html |
