Doubts Cast On U.S. Explanation Of Iraqi Protesters' Deaths

by Jim Lobe

In the 18-page document, the group called for an independent and impartial investigation by U.S. authorities of the two incidents in the central Iraq city. It also challenged the military's contention that its troops came under direct fire in the two incidents April 28 and 30.

HRW also took issue with the military's insistence that its soldiers responded with "precision fire" against what they assumed to be Iraqi gunmen.

Separately, rights group Amnesty International reiterated its call for the UN Security Council to immediately deploy human rights monitors to the occupied country.

In the six weeks since the fatal demonstrations, al-Falluja, which lies about 35 miles west of Baghdad, has become a major center of resistance to U.S. forces. At least four soldiers have been killed in a series of guerrilla attacks, while many more have been injured.

The new report, 'Violent Response: The U.S. Army in al-Falluja,' is based on interviews with soldiers, officers, townspeople and other witnesses, as well as an investigation of ballistic evidence at the scene of the two attacks.

It says the town had been spared the ground war in March and April but had been bombed from the air, a fact which contributed to local resentment from the day, April 23, that U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived and occupied a local school.

Five days later, a demonstration called to protest the military's presence in the town, turned violent. According to the military, soldiers returned "precision fire" on gunmen in the crowd who were shooting at them, while the protesters insisted that the troops fired on them without provocation, killing 17 people and wounding more than 70 in what was the worst incident of its kind to date.

Two days later, a U.S. military convoy driving through al-Falluja in the midst of another demonstration opened fire on protesters, killing three and wounding at least 16 more. The soldiers said they thought they had come under fire, while the townspeople insisted that no shots were fired from the Iraqi side. They admitted that rocks had been thrown at the army vehicles and in one case broke the window of a truck, injuring a soldier.

In the first incident, HRW said it could find no conclusive evidence of bullet damage to the walls of the school where the soldiers were based, "placing into serious question the assertion that they had come under fire from individuals in the crowd," the report said.

But the group found extensive evidence of multi-calibre bullet impacts in the buildings across the street from the school that were not consistent with the U.S. contention that the troops responded with "precision fire." If not indiscriminate, the response in that incident was clearly excessive, HRW concluded.

In the second incident, the circumstances and interviews with all parties suggested that once again, the U.S. troops had responded with "disproportionate force," according to HRW.

"The U.S. military presence in al-Falluja began with these tragic events in late April, and it has been troubled ever since," said Hanny Megally, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division, in a statement. "What is needed is a thorough investigation of possible violations of international humanitarian law by U.S. troops."

The report echoes charges that soldiers acted with disproportionate force in reacting elsewhere in Iraq, including firing on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, which was known to house foreign journalists. Soldiers said they were shot at from the hotel but subsequent investigations have virtually refuted that contention. Two reporters were killed in the incident and three others wounded.

Al-Falluja, located in the heartland of the Sunni Muslim population in Iraq, has emerged as a major source of concern to U.S. occupation authorities, which last week conducted armed house-to-house searches for banned weapons and suspected rebels as part of Operation Desert Scorpion.

U.S. military officials say the city remains a stronghold for members of former President Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, while the neo-conservative 'Weekly Standard' magazine, a major war booster, cited reports that these forces may have been joined by followers of the militant Islamic Wahabi faith to fight against the occupation.

HRW says its report highlights some of the problems in putting a powerful combat force in a law-enforcement role, particularly when the troops involved had come straight from battle, where they suffered casualties.

"Regardless of the possible responsibility of the individuals involved in the shooting that led to the killing of up to 20 and wounding of scores of others," it said, "one conclusion is inescapable. U.S. military and political authorities who placed combat-ready soldiers in the highly volatile environment of al-Falluja without adequate law-enforcement training, translators and crowd control devices followed a recipe for disaster."

Many critics of Washington's campaign in Iraq have pointed to these incidents as evidence of major failures in U.S. planning for the occupation that followed the war. The Pentagon has tried to improve its capacity for law enforcement by introducing thousands of military police with riot-control training, although they have so far been confined mainly to Baghdad.

HRW stressed that it was still possible that U.S. troops may still possibly have been fired on by provocateurs in either incident, but that it could not find the evidence. It also said it was unable to review intelligence and other classified information that could shed more light on the two incidents -- all the more reason, it added, why a full investigation should be carried out.