U.S. soldiers plant weapons on fake rebels

Al Jazeera | June 27 2005

A U.S. citizen working in Iraq sent several photographs he obtained from a soldier in Iraq to writer Mark Kraft. Apparently, they had been passed along between several sources before reaching their intended target.

The pictures were particularly controversial and newsworthy, in that they appear to show U.S. soldiers planting weapons on Iraqi teenagers. They were passed on to Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, who mentioned them in an interview on May 11, 2005.

"After I did Abu Ghraib, I got a bunch of digital pictures emailed me, and -- was a lot of work on it, and I decided, well, we can talk about it later…You have some general rules, but in this case, a bunch of kids were going along in three vehicles. One of them got blown up. The other two units -- soldiers ran out, saw some people running, opened up fire. It was a bunch of boys playing soccer. And in the digital videos you see everybody standing around, they pull the bodies together. This is last summer. They pull the bodies together. You see the body parts, the legs and boots of the Americans pulling bodies together. Young kids, I don't know how old, 13, 15, I guess. And then you see soldiers dropping R.P.G.'s, which are rocket-launched grenades around them. And then they're called in as an "insurgent kill"."

Hersh had no plans to go forward with the story at the time, citing the inconclusive nature of what happened, and the risk it could have to his sources. Kraft however believed there is an overwhelming public interest that they be released. It should be up to the media and the general public to determine for themselves what occurred that day.

The pictures indicate that a group of U.S. soldiers planted weapons -- the same weapon, in fact -- in front of killed, wounded, and captured Iraqi kids. Though Kraft cannot authenticate whether the teens in question were innocent or not, it is clear something significant is amiss. At the very least, it indicated how uncertain the situation is over there. The U.S. soldiers do not know who the enemy is, and apparently are willing to manipulate the evidence in order to justify their actions.

The pictures were taken with a digital camera in Buhriz, Iraq on Oct. 22nd, 2004, and their file names are numbered, apparently from the digital camera in question. They show the basics: no weapons in the first photos, then weapons inserted into the pictures later. They also show pretty clearly that these pictures have not been manipulated with.

It's clear these teenagers are not rebels, in that they showed no signs of having either weapons or wearing the type of uniform which are typically used by the rebels.

It's also worth noting that medical treatment was apparently not offered until shown in the later pictures, leading one to wonder whether the assistance, in itself, was part of the "staged" element of these photos.

Here is what is known happened with the incident in question:

A U.S. patrol led by 1st Lt. Terry "T.J." Grider's platoon -- 1st Infantry Division troops based out of FOB Gabe -- were on a "movement to contact" mission -- basically trying to draw fire. At approximately 7:20 am, they were reportedly fired upon by small arms and RPGs while driving near Buhriz. A Captain Bill Coppernoll from the 1st Infantry Division told the news agency AFP that nine rebels were killed and three wounded that day.

A hospital from Ba'aquba reported that it received three dead and eight wounded from the fighting.

The dead appear to have been turned over within 48 hours to some other party. An Arab news television station apparently had a reporter/photographer on the scene who took pictures of these teens prior to their funerals. Some of their clothes have been changed, possibly in preparation for their funerals. What the reporter saw and what the locals told him is very revealing as to what exactly happened that day.