A Suspicious Piece of the Haditha Puzzle
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006Amid a damaging scandal in which United States Marines in November 2005 may have killed Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in retaliation for the death of a Marine by an insurgent’s IED (Improvised Explosive Device), a little Iraqi girl’s candid testimony of the events may shed some light on what actually happened.
The girl is 9 year old Eman Waleed, and she lost almost her entire immediate family in the killings.
THE BACKGROUND:
March 27, 2006 edition of Time Magazine reported in the article One Morning in Haditha:
Here’s what all participants agree on: At around 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, a U.S. humvee was struck by a powerful improvised explosive device (IED) attached to a large propane canister, triggered by remote control. The bomb killed Terrazas, who was driving, and injured two other Marines. For U.S. troops, Haditha, set among date-palm groves along the Euphrates River, was inhospitable territory; every day the Marines found scores of bombs buried in the dirt roads near their base.
Eman Waleed, 9, lived in a house 150 yards from the site of the blast, which was strong enough to shatter all the windows in her home. "We heard a big noise that woke us all up," she recalls two months later. "Then we did what we always do when there’s an explosion: my father goes into his room with the Koran and prays that the family will be spared any harm." Eman says the rest of the family–her mother, grandfather, grandmother, two brothers, two aunts and two uncles–gathered in the living room.
Eman says she "heard a lot of shooting, so none of us went outside. Besides, it was very early, and we were all wearing our nightclothes." When the Marines entered the house, they were shouting in English. "First, they went into my father’s room, where he was reading the Koran," she claims, "and we heard shots." According to Eman, the Marines then entered the living room. "I couldn’t see their faces very well–only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny." She claims the troops started firing toward the corner of the room where she and her younger brother Abdul Rahman, 8, were hiding; the other adults shielded the children from the bullets but died in the process. Eman says her leg was hit by a piece of metal and Abdul Rahman was shot near his shoulder. "We were lying there, bleeding, and it hurt so much. Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I was crying, shouting ‘Why did you do this to our family?’ And one Iraqi soldier tells me, ‘We didn’t do it. The Americans did.’"
CNN ran footage of an interview with Eman Waleed that gives this surprising insight: (more…)