U.S. offers 'regrets' over mounting civilian casualties

U.S. offers 'regrets' over mounting civilian casualties

Agencies, Baghdad/Miami

The United States expressed "regret" at the shooting deaths of
seven women and children at a U.S. roadblock in Iraq, as dozens
more civilians were reported killed in U.S.-British airstrikes.

Mounting civilian casualties on Tuesday stoked international
unease at the U.S.-led war, already high after seven women and
children were shot dead at a U.S. checkpoint in Central Iraq.

"I'd like to express our regrets to the families of the Iraqis
killed yesterday at the checkpoint near Al Najaf. The loss of any
innocent life is truly tragic," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman
of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff.

But he also blamed "the climate established by the Iraqi
regime" as contributing to the shooting at a checkpoint at Najaf,
150 kilometers (95 miles) south of Baghdad, on Monday afternoon.

U.S. President George W. Bush also offered his "regrets" at
the deaths of Iraqi civilians, but blamed the casualties on
Saddam while backing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld against
allegations that he had meddled in military planning to limit the
number of troops deployed to Iraq.

Rumsfeld has fervently denied the allegations.

Surviving members of a family whose van was fired on by troops
in Iraq said they were traveling toward allied lines because they
thought an air-dropped leaflet had advised them to flee for
safety.

In a report published on Wednesday in the Miami Herald and
other Knight Ridder newspapers, Bakhat Hassan said American
soldiers had waved his family's car through a checkpoint as they
left their village on Monday. But at the next checkpoint, the
soldiers fired.

"We were thinking these Americans want us to be safe," Hassan,
35, said through a translator.

Hassan, interviewed on Tuesday by a Knight Ridder
correspondent at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital near Najaf,
south of Baghdad, said 11 members of his family were killed in
the incident - his daughters, aged 2 and 5, his son, 3, his
parents, two older brothers, their wives and two nieces, ages 12
and 15. His wife, Lamea, who is nine-months pregnant, said she
saw her children die.

"I saw the heads of my two little girls come off," said Lamea
Hassan, 36. "My girls - I watched their heads come off their
bodies. My son is dead."

U.S. officials originally said seven were killed; reporters at
the scene placed the death toll at 10. Hassan's father later died
at the Army hospital. A brother who is being treated there may
not survive, a doctor said.

Another brother, a sister-in-law and a 7-year-old child were
released to bury the dead.

The soldiers who fired on the family were following orders not
to let vehicles approach checkpoints, U.S. officials said. Troops
in the area were on edge after an Iraqi army officer posing as a
taxi driver killed four soldiers in a suicide attack on Saturday.

The Hassans decided to make the journey after an American
helicopter dropped fliers over their farming village that showed
a drawing of a family sitting at a table, eating and smiling,
with a message written in Arabic.

They planned to go to Karbala. They stopped at an Army
checkpoint on the northbound road near Sahara, about 40
kilometers (25 miles) south of Karbala, and were told to go on,
Hassan said.

But "the Iraqi family misunderstood" what the soldiers were
saying, Furbush said.

A few kilometers (miles) later, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle
came into view. The family waved as it came closer. The soldiers
opened fire.

Hassan remembers an Army medic at the scene of the killings
speaking Arabic.

"He told us it was a mistake and the soldiers were sorry,"
Hassan said.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International asked the United
States to undertake a full, independent inquiry into the
shooting.

In Brussels the European Commission called the checkpoint
killings "a horrible and tragic incident... It is not an isolated
incident. Too many civilians have already lost their lives in
this war.