Iraq to investigate killings in Haditha

Published Thursday, June 1, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq’s premier said today he will present his choices for defense and interior ministers in three days, and his government said it would conduct its own investigation into allegations that U.S. Marines killed unarmed civilians.

The announcement by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki came amid mounting pressure to fill the Cabinet posts - seen as key to quelling violence and to Iraqi forces taking control of security from U.S.-led forces - and amid anger over reports of the killings of 24 Iraqis, including women and children, last year in the western city of Haditha.

One top U.S. general expressed condolences for Iraqi deaths in Haditha, and another ordered U.S. military commanders to conduct core-values training on moral and ethical standards on the battlefield.

At a news conference, al-Maliki also said he had ordered his government to hold talks with the U.S. military over civilian complaints of mistreatment and to "formulate ground rules for detentions and raids."

"We cannot forgive violations of the dignity of the Iraqi people," the prime minister said.

In violence today, a bomb struck a group of construction workers seeking jobs in central Baghdad, killing at least two and wounding 18, police said. The explosives were hidden in a plastic bag on Tayaran Square, less than a mile from the heavily fortified Green Zone, as the men ate breakfast near a food stall. Insurgents have frequently targeted police and other workers seen as cooperating with U.S.-led security or reconstruction.

Al-Maliki said he would present his choice for the crucial security posts to Parliament because disagreements among Iraq’s political, ethnic and sectarian parties proved insurmountable. Talks had deadlocked over the background of the candidates. The Defense Ministry is to go to a Sunni Arab, the Interior Ministry to a Shiite.

The Shiite prime minister said "the names of the interior and defense ministers will be announced at Parliament’s next session" Sunday, ending two weeks of negotiations. The candidates must be approved by an overwhelming majority in the Parliament.

Three posts remained empty when al-Maliki’s Cabinet was sworn in May 20 - defense, interior and minister of state for national security. The posts, especially defense and interior, are considered crucial to al-Maliki’s plan to curb the insurgency and take control of security from U.S.-led forces within 18 months. Such a takeover is a part of the overall American exit strategy that would allow the withdrawal of its 130,000 troops.

The killings at Haditha, a city plagued by insurgents, came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials, has said Marines shot and killed civilians in a taxi and went into two homes and shot others.

Cabinet ministers decided to launch an Iraqi inquiry into the killings to be carried out by a special committee, an al-Maliki adviser, Adnan al-Kazimi, told The Associated Press.

The U.S. military said it constantly strives to avoid civilian casualties and has promised the deaths in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, will be fully investigated.

"We do want to express our deepest condolences to the families who lost a loved one in Haditha," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said today in Baghdad. "The coalition does not and will not tolerate any unethical or criminal behavior."

Caldwell said "three or four" other investigations into similar allegations were being held but gave no further details.

More than 4,000 Iraqis - many of them civilians - have been killed in war-related violence this year, including at least 936 in May, according to an AP count. That makes May the second deadliest month for Iraqis in the past year, after March.