Iraqis numb to killings probe that shocks US

BAGHDAD, May 28: Word that US Marines may have killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in ''cold-blooded'' revenge after an insurgent attack has shocked Americans but many Iraqis shrug it off as an every day fact of life under occupation.

Despite US military denials, many Iraqis believe killing of men, women and children at the hands of careless or angry American soldiers is common. No reliable statistics are available.

Since US officials said last week that charges including murder were possible after an investigation into the deaths at Haditha last November, Iraqi media and politicians have paid scant attention to details leaking out in Washington.

As US commentators talk of ''Iraq's My Lai'' and wonder if Haditha could have a similar effect as the 1968 massacre in Vietnam on public attitudes to the military and the war, few Iraqi leaders have mentioned the incident in a town 220 km (140 miles) northwest of Baghdad where Sunni rebels were very active.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has talked up chances of a US troop withdrawal since being sworn in last week but has not linked that to any complaint about the forces' conduct.

''We would like an official Iraqi investigation,'' an aide to Iraq's new Human Rights Minister Wejdan Mikhail told Reuters.

Leaders of the Sunni minority are more critical but say the Haditha incident is only part of a pattern of U.S. behaviour in the Sunni heartlands north and west of Baghdad: ''The American soldier has become an expert in killing,'' said Abdel Salam al- Qubaisy, spokesman for the Sunni Muslim Scholars Association.

Echoing a common view in Iraq that the few U.S. soldiers convicted of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2003 were made scapegoats for a wider problem, Qubaisy said: ''This must be considered a war crime and the commanders tried.'' In Baghdad's bustling Karrada commercial district, Mohammed Jawdaat, 47, offered a typical view at his store, where business selling firefighting gear is booming amid the chaos of Baghdad: ''It really doesn't surprise me,'' he said.

Like many in the city, he can recount an incident in which he says he saw U.S. forces open fire on civilians: ''Six months ago a car pulled out of a street towards an American convoy and a soldier just opened fire,'' Jawdaat said.

''The driver was shot in the head and the person behind was killed too. They were innocents. There were no warning shots and the Americans didn't even stop. The police took the wounded.'' At a barber shop nearby, Ahmed Abdel Rahman could not recall a single one of his talkative customers mentioning Haditha. One of them, Salah Mohammed, said such violence was common, including among Iraqis themselves.

''This sort of thing isn't unusual,'' he said, blaming general insecurity on the occupation. ''Look at my neighbourhood. Sunnis kill Shi'ites every day -- it's all because of the Americans.'' In the restive Sunni city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, lawyer Abd Mohammed Falah, 45, said: ''The U.S. forces have committed more crimes against the Iraqi people than appears in the media.

The US defense secretary and his generals should be sent to court instead of two or three soldiers who will be scapegoats.'' ''COLD BLOOD'' The Haditha investigation is not complete and no final decisions on charges have been made, defence officials say.

But US lawmakers have been giving details, with one anti-war congressman saying Marines killed ''in cold blood''.

Haditha Residents have described how two families, including young children and women, were shot dead in their homes after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb on Nov. 19.

The military initially said the bomb also killed the civilians. Only the emergence of a film of the bodies led to an inquiry by Time magazine that in turn prompted the probe.'' The military announced a similar probe last week into the death of a man in the same area in April. An investigation was launched into the deaths of 11 people, including children, north of Baghdad in March. No results have yet been announced.

No results have been announced of a probe launched last July into an accusation by Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations that Marines killed one of his relatives near Haditha.

The Haditha investigation came as President George W. Bush is trying to rally public support for staying in Iraq. He conceded last week there were mistakes, notably at Abu Ghraib.

Hamdi Hassan, editor of the Adala newspaper owned by one of the ruling Shi'ite parties, said civilians were often killed by U.S. troops but acknowledged the soldiers' problems: ''The insurgents attack the Americans and then they hide among the civilians. Then the Americans just open fire everywhere.'' The paper has not reported on the Haditha case recently and some Iraqis have not heard of the incident.

Imad Mohammed, a teenager selling newspapers at a Baghdad intersection, said he had not seen Haditha on any front page and said it simply was not news: ''The Americans see a Muslim go into a mosque and just assume he is a terrorist.

''They either arrest him or blow it up.'' REUTERS