Compensation for Haditha deaths paltry, lawyer says

Published Sunday, June 4, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A lawyer who had several relatives among 24 Iraqis allegedly slain by U.S. Marines in the fall and is representing kin of other victims complained in a videotape yesterday that American compensation paid to the families was inadequate.

Khaled Salem Rsayef also said U.S. officers accused him and other relatives of lying when they recounted the shootings in their first meeting with the military after the Nov. 19 deaths in the western town of Haditha. He did not say when they met.

In interviews taped Friday by an AP Television News cameraman, 9-year-old survivor Iman Walid Abdul-Hameed demanded those responsible be executed.

"Because they hurt us, we want the Americans to be executed," Iman said, wearing a violet-colored striped shirt, matching pants and headband while sitting on a couch at a relative’s home. She was reluctant to speak at first but was eventually persuaded by her relatives.

The girl lost her parents, a brother, grandparents and two uncles in the incident. Another brother, Abdul-Rahman, who was 6 at the time, and a sister, Asia, who was 5 months old, survived. Iman and Abdul-Rahman were slightly injured. "We did not do anything to them," Iman said of the Marines who allegedly killed unarmed civilians after becoming enraged when a comrade died in a roadside bombing.

The deaths in Haditha and two other incidents involving allegations of wrongful killings have put the U.S. military on the defensive, drawing charges from Iraqis that American troops show little regard for the lives of innocent people.

U.S. authorities are investigating the killings in Haditha and another town, but yesterday cleared U.S. troops of wrongdoing in the deaths of up to 13 Iraqis in a village north of Baghdad. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said U.S. troops appropriately responded to an attack by insurgents during a raid in Ishaqi on March 15. A roadside bomb hit a U.S. convoy in Ishaqi yesterday, wounding two U.S. soldiers.

The director of Haditha General Hospital told AP Television News the 24 victims in that city included eight women and five children. Walid Abdul-Khaleq al-Obeidi said the victims mostly had chest and head wounds and were delivered to the hospital by Marines about 14 hours after witnesses said the last gunshot was heard at the death scene.

One body was charred, al-Obeidi added. That was believed to be Iman’s father, Walid Abdul-Hameed, who witnesses said was burned to death after a grenade was thrown into his room.

Rsayef, the lawyer, said that during the first meeting between families of the Haditha victims and U.S. military officers, the Americans told the families that the 24 deaths were caused by the roadside bomb and by "terrorists."

"We had a heated argument," he said.

He said the U.S. officers also said during the meeting that they had no objection to TV news teams visiting the Euphrates River town to report on the deaths.

"In reality, they did not make good on their promises and sealed off the town for a month after the shootings," said Rsayef, who had a brother and sister-in-law, an uncle, an aunt and several cousins among the 24 killed.

Despite blaming insurgents for the killings, the U.S. military gave the families $2,500 for each person killed in the incident about a month later, except for four brothers, all of fighting age, he said.

"When I received the compensation money, I found out that it was $2,500 for each victim," Rsayef said. "I told them that it’s a small sum that does not match the magnitude of the disaster."

He noted that Libya’s government paid millions of dollars in compensation to the families of the Lockerbie airline bombing victims. "Is American blood worth more than Iraqi blood?" he asked.