US Military Response
Initial US Army reports quoted Major Tim Keefe, a US military spokesperson:
- "A battle damage assessment, the initial reports, said that what they saw were four people killed - a woman and two children and an enemy - and they detained an enemy A man suspected of being a "foreign fighter facilitator" was taken into coalition custody and is being questioned I saw those photos and it didn't appear there were any handcuffs."
A US Army press briefing on March 15, 2006 referred to the incident:
- "Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building,” said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon, a military spokeswoman. "Coalition forces returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets."
On March 21, 2006, MSNBC reported that the US Army was opening up an investigation due to this discrepancy:
- "'Because of that discrepancy, we have opened an investigation,' Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a senior U.S. spokesman in Baghdad, said on Tuesday.
The Pentagon investigation was closed in June 2006 and cleared the soldiers of wrongdoing. Major General William B. Caldwell, a senior US military spokesman, said in an official statement that "Allegations that the troops executed a family living in this safe house, and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false."
Read more about this topic: Ishaqi Incident
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