The U.S. Marine Corps has declined to comment on the report, which initially stated that 15 were killed.
"There was no firefight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," Murtha said. (Watch Murtha level accusations against the Marines -- 1:58)
Murtha, who was decorated for his service in Vietnam, said the death toll may be more than twice as high as originally reported.
"They actually went into the houses and killed women and children," the congressman said.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/18/murtha.marines/index.html
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 22, 2006]
Note: http://www.cnn.com/2006...

If he says it happened, it happened.
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
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PEJ News - C. L. Cook - News of just one event in a doubtless eventful military operation was reported by Reuters today. U.S. forces taking part in the so-named, 'Operation Swarmer' entered the home of a suspected al Qaida in Iraq operative, bound his entire family, lined them up and shot them dead. The house containing the bodies was then demolished with explosives.<br />
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<a href="http://www.PEJ.org">www.PEJ.org</a><br />
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Root and Branch: <br />
American Forces Wipe Out Family<br />
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C. L. Cook<br />
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PEJ News<br />
March 17, 2006<br />
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In a terse statement, American military officials said two women and a child died in the raid. But police and witnesses in Ishaqi, a small town 100 kilometers north of Baghdad, tell a different story. They say, discovered in the rubble of the home were eleven members of a family. Five children, two men, and four women. <br />
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Ishaqi police spokesperson, Major Ali Ahmed says helicopters delivered troops onto the roof of a house in the middle of the night. Soldiers entered and shot the family, before destroying the house. Officer Ahmed's colleague, Colonel Farouq Hussein says autopsies were conducted in Tikrit. All eleven of the dead had gunshot wounds to the head; including the youngest, a seven month old infant. He says the adults were all bound, their bodies found dumped together in one room of the demolished house. <br />
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"It's a clear and perfect crime without any doubt," Hussein says.<br />
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The story of the executed family, aired on local television replete with images of the dead infant, its head displaying a "gaping head wound," has outraged the community, and officials there have demanded an explanation from the military. They say the U.S. military has arranged to meet with local leaders sometime Friday.<br />
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The entire town attended the funeral. Town administrator, Rasheed Shather expressed shock at the brutality of the attack, saying; "We want the Americans to give us an explanation for this horrible crime."<br />
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One man in attendance at the funeral angrily denounced the killings, saying; "They killed these innocent children. Are these considered terrorists? Is a seven-month-old child a terrorist?" <br />
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Another, while watching wailing neighbours bury the dead, condemned America; "An entire family was killed. It's a barbaric act."<br />
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But there is method behind this barbarity.<br />
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No less a figure than U.S. Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld has unabashedly referred to the "Salvador Option" for Iraq, a reference to the U.S.-trained and supported death squads that terrorized much of Latin America in the 1980's. Credence was given to claims just such a death squad regime was emerging in Iraq when Ambassador John Negroponte was dispatched there. Negroponte was the central agent of the United States in Latin America in those dark years, long believed to have been the architect of the death squad policies there. <br />
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In conjunction with death squads, both American and British "Black Ops." have been operating in Iraq, their missions and methods classified. Some light was shed on this last September, when two British SAS agents were arrested in Basra after a brief exchange of fire with Iraqi police at a roadblock. The men, disguised as Iraqis, were found to be carrying weapons and bomb-making materials. This is a particularly salient point when considering last month's destruction of the Samarra mosque. <br />
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Recent months have seen an escalation in bombings and outrages with little discernible motive, other than to evoke outrage itself. The destruction of the Samarra mosque, one of Shia Islam's most sacred sites was initially ascribed to Sunni's. This despite the fact, the mosque is in the middle of a Sunni neighbourhood and had been co-operatively administered by both sects for decades. Since, suspicion for the bombing has fallen on American allies in the Iraqi National Guard, bent on, the belief is, sparking a sectarian war in Iraq. <br />
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Like the British before them, the American plan may now be to start a "civil war" to cover their retreat from Iraq, leaving a destabilized and chaotic country in their wake. <br />
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<a href="http://www.videos.informationclearinghouse.info/11killed.jpg">http://www.videos.informationclearinghouse.info/11killed.jpg</a><br />
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Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.<br />
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Expect little from life and get more from it.
I don't have a way to do it<br />
Dio<p>---<br>The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.... : Albert Einstein
That's my point. So why now?
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Expect little from life and get more from it.