We blew up a wedding

[Stonecutter]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...l=chi-news-hed

AP: Video Shows Iraq Wedding Celebration

By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
Associated Press Writer

May 23, 2004, 10:11 PM CDT

RAMADI, Iraq -- A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.

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.

An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video -- which runs for several hours.

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 both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom.

The singing and dancing seems 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, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. 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 as 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 -- a boy and a girl -- held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and they 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 any 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 told reporters Friday.

However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them 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 memories of the survivors remain painful -- as are their injuries.

Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her five-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. "We were bleeding from 3 a.m. until sunrise," Shihab said.

Soon American soldiers came. One of them kicked her to see if she was alive, she said.

"I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," said Shihab. She said the soldier was laughing. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: "'No, stop," said Shihab.

Fourteen-year-old Moza, Shihab's stepdaughter, lies on another bed of the hospital room. She was hurt in the leg and cries. Her relatives haven't told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead.

"I fear she's dead," Moza said of her mother. "I'm worried about her."

Moza was sleeping on one side of the porch next to her sisters Siham, Subha and Zohra while her mother slept on the other end. There were many others on the porch, her cousins, stepmothers and other female relatives.

When the first shell fell, Moza and her sisters, Subha, Fatima and Siham ran off together. Moza was holding Subha's hand.

"I don't know where Fatima and my mom were. Siham got hit. She died. I saw Zohra's head gone. I lost consciousness," said Moza, covering her mouth with the end of her headscarf.

Her sister Iqbal, lay in pain on the bed next to her. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital, in the same room with two-year-Khoolood. Her small body was bandaged and a tube inserted in her side drained her liver.

Her ankle was bandaged. A red ribbon was tied to her curly hair. Only she and her older brother, Faisal, survived from their immediate family. Her parents and four sisters and brothers were all killed.

In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef's extended family died -- most of them children and women, the family said.

[gekko]

I guess terrorists don't get married, do they? Of course not! That is, if there even was a wedding.

[Hero2]

HAHAHAHAHA.....LOFL....Wars a b*tch!!!!!!!!

[Crash]

Originally Posted by Hero2

HAHAHAHAHA.....LOFL....Wars a b*tch!!!!!!!!

what an asshole... LOL a funny asshole, but an asshole nevertheless

[Dylflon]

I'm rather surprised by Hero2's insensitivity.

I think the wedding bombing is a terrible thing. Those people didn't deserve to die.

Will these people be classified as "casualties of war"?

The Iraqi people have been so dehumanized to American people that people laugh when they read about innocent people being killed while attending a wedding.

Sickening.

[GameMaster]

I was sad when I read it. The troops are getting a little too relaxed if you ask me, they need to do more detailed checks before they attack someone or something. And even worse, the General guy tries to clear his name by saying it didn't look like a wedding celebration to him, he says, "Bad people have celebrations too." Very lame.

[gekko]

The troops? What are the troops doing? It was bombed, meaning the most the troops got is something like "NA 08565 36452." That, BTW, is a 5-digit grid coordinate, accurate to within 1 meter. Pilot gets it, drops the bomb. Troops getting too relaxed, they have no idea what they are bombing.

It could have been bad intelligence. Oops. Better luck next time.

Or, we could've had someone on the ground who designated the target, and if that was the case, there's a reason that place was hit.

Since when did America need to justify every bombing to the world? You have no idea what is going on over there, and you don't care until you can spin it to suit your political argument. None of you cared when these people died before, because you don't care about these people. You only pretend to now, because you can use it as an attack on Bush, who, by the way, does not approve every shot fired in Iraq.

Some crazy journalist who knows nothing of the military strategy is going in after each battle and creating some stupid story for the NYTimes and you guys get all excited, like Bush is going to lose. There's a million reasons why this place could've been bombed, and some of them are not exactly going to be disclosed to the public. For example, say a Syrian or Iranian leader was going to be at the wedding, and we had intel that they were paying the insurgents to go into Iraq and fight. Well guess what? We're not at war with those countries, you can't just go tell the world "Hey, we're killing your guys now" without starting another war. God damn, that actually makes sense. One of many possible reasons.

No journalist knows why we're doing what we're doing. They're kept completely out of the military strategy, they just go in after we attack and interview civilians. Well her husband just got shot, no **** she's not happy with us. Then again, the husband was shooting at us with RPGs, but of course, let's leave that out of the story.

Oh no, some innocent civilians got hit with a bomb blast. Well no ****, I thought bombs only killed one person. Here's a better idea, to prevent that, how about we send more soldiers on foot. Oh wait, we don't have that many. Well good, let's draft em from all you ****ers sitting back and whining about innocents dying. Then I can sit back and train you draftees and send you over to die. But look on the bright side, less innocent Iraqis will die.

[Hero2]

Originally Posted by Dylflon

I'm rather surprised by Hero2's insensitivity.

I think the wedding bombing is a terrible thing. Those people didn't deserve to die.

Will these people be classified as "casualties of war"?

The Iraqi people have been so dehumanized to American people that people laugh when they read about innocent people being killed while attending a wedding.

Sickening.

Im srry if I offened anyone I dident mean for it to come out so harsh. I dont think it was a good thing that we bombed them or that we killed civilans. I was laughing at the fact that we screwed up BIG. I wasnt lauging at the dead people but the fact that we bombed a wedding it seems like something out of a hot shots movie.

[Crash]

the only reason it seems so bad is because all the stupid reporters, reporting everything that happens all day long (well, the stuff that makes americans looks bad anyways)

this stuff happens in all wars, just isn't covered as well as it is today. The truth is: War is Hell

You can't expect america to be the all righteous perfect nation that does nothing wrong and saves everyone, nation that we claim it to be. This is why I said younger poeple are democrats (aka idealists, but not realists)

and later, when they realize how the real world is run, they become republicans.

yeah, democrats complain all day about the weather, but never do anything about it.

lets imagine if hitler was taken out before he came to power... dont you think it would have been worth the collateral damage?