US soldiers involved in Iraqi policemen deaths ‘just arrived in city’

AMERICAN soldiers who mistakenly killed eight Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian guard this month had been in the turbulent city for only one day and were in the midst of a handover from one military unit to another.

According to US and Iraqi officials, confusion and inexperience may have contributed to the September 12 killings, the worst friendly fire incident since major hostilities were declared over on May 1.

However, Capt Jimmy Cummings, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, dismissed any suggestion that the soldiers who had been in Iraq for a week were ill-prepared.

"They did receive training. They just got back from Afghanistan and before they deployed to Afghanistan they had training and before they went back they got training again," Cummings said.

He said that the second round of training had been refined with lessons learned in Afghanistan and the Iraq conflict. The killings stoked tensions in the city.

The US-backed mayor of Fallujah Taha Bedawi said US military officials have asked to meet with Fallujah's tribal chiefs and dignitaries to try to defuse the anger that has swept the city of 200,000 people.

He said that the meeting, tentatively scheduled for later this week, will also decide on a financial settlement known in Arabic as diya, or blood money, to be paid to the families of the victims.

The 82nd Airborne has had a checkered history in Fallujah, one of the cities in the Sunni Triangle, where hostility towards the United States is most intense.

In April, soldiers from the division fired on protesters on two successive days, killing 18 and injuring 78. US troops had withdrawn to a base outside the city in July and had been turning over security duties to local police. The US military at the time said that the troops were fired at first in the April incident, but Iraqi witnesses denied this.

After the April shooting, the military agreed to pay $2,500 to the families of the dead and $500 to those of the wounded.

Bedawi, however, said only $1,500 of the $2,500 promised for each of the families of those killed had so far been paid. He suggested that $2,500 per family may not be enough for families of the eight policemen killed this month.

"The compensation must be appropriate. These families have nothing and $2,500 is not an acceptable sum," he said.

The policemen were killed while chasing a white BMW thought to have been used by highway bandits. The Iraqi police gave up the chase when the BMW got away. As they made their way back to Fallujah, they came under fire from American soldiers.