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According to the US military, the air strike took place after a raid nearby detained 5 militants and a weapons cache, and intelligence revealed safe houses of foreign insurgents.
But Iraqi hospital officials and police descirbe the airstrike as destroying 4 houses in the village of Zaidan, killing 45 people, including women, children, and elderly. A doctor at nearby Fallujah Public Hospital told the Associated Press that 20 more civilians wounded by the airstrike were being treated.
Photos taken by the Associated Press show wounded children being taken to the Fallujah Public Hospital, and one dead child in the back of a pickup truck.
The carnage in Zaidan and the lies being told to cover it up are eerily similar to the airstrike in the town of Ishaqi two months ago that destroyed two homes and killed at least 20 people, including 6 women and 5 children, their bodies charred and unrecognizable. The US military described that airstrike as “another step closer to defeating al Qaeda in Iraq and helping establish a safe and peaceful Iraq”, while Amer Alwan, the mayor of Ishaqi, told AFP news agency that “this is the third crime done by Americans in this area of Ishaqi. All the casualties were innocent women and children and everything they said about them being part of al-Qaeda is a lie.”
Bush’s escalation of the war will only mean more massacres of innocent civilians. Haditha. Ishaqi. Zaidan. When does it become time for millions of people in the United Sates to refuse to allow their government to continue this bloodshed? Look up at the picture above and decide what you’re going to do about it.