Interesting bit from the
Seattle Times on the ongoing conflicting stories about the site of the bombing ...
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Some Survivors of U.S. Air Attack Appear in Video of Wedding Party
by Scheherezade Faramarzi
(Associated Press)
Videotape of a wedding party shows guests relaxing Tuesday on the carpeted floor of a large tent in the village of Mogr el-Deeb, Iraq, about five miles from the Syrian border. Guests say the party was attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people.
RAMADI, Iraq — The bride arrives in a white pickup truck and is quickly ushered into a house by a group of women. Outside, men recline on brightly colored silk pillows, relaxing on the carpeted floor of a large goat-hair tent as boys dance to tribal songs.
The videotape obtained yesterday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes last week, killing up to 45 people.
An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than 12 survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many on the wedding-party video, which runs for several hours.
The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck early Wednesday.
The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb, about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.
"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."
But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations scattered around the bombed-out tent.
The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car, decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.
APTN also traveled to Mogr el-Deeb, 250 miles west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site. A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking "ATU-35," similar to those on U.S. bombs.
A water tanker truck can be seen in the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom.
The singing and dancing seem to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride, Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.
As expected, women are out of sight, but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. Al-Ali was buried in Baghdad on Thursday.
Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud, his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt he wore when he performed.
As the musicians played, young men milled about, most dressed in traditional white robes. Young men swayed in tribal dances to the monotonous tones of traditional Arabic music. Two children held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and appear only in distant glimpses.
Kimmitt said U.S. troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.
The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis.
Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that children died in the raid although a "handful of women" — perhaps four to six — were "caught up in the engagement."
"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he said Friday.
However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children relatives said had died. Bodies of five were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.
Four days after the attack, the survivors' memories — and injuries — remain painful.
Haleema Shihab, 32, one of three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her 7-month-old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her 5-year-old son, Hamza, started running. Her 15-year-old son, Ali, sprinted alongside her. They managed to run for several yards when she fell, her leg fractured.
"Hamza was yelling, 'Mommy,' " Shihab recalled. "Ali said he was hurt and that he was bleeding. That's the last time I heard him." Then another shell fell and injured Shihab's left arm.
"Hamza fell from my hand and was gone. Only Yousef stayed in my arms. Ali had been hit and was killed. I couldn't go back," she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi. Her arm was in a cast.
She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal — who had caught up with her — hid in a bomb crater.
Soon American soldiers came. One kicked her to see if she was alive, she said.
"I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," Shihab said. She said the soldier was laughing. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: "No, stop," Shihab said.
In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef's extended family died, most of them children and women, the family said.
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Sure would be nice to know the truth.
Phaedrus
