Investigations: 'I Feel Threatened'

[acmavm]

A string of questionable killings and tales of a macabre contest

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6700921/site/newsweek/

<snip>

Dec. 20 issue - It was supposed to be a routine search. Hunting for gunmen and weapons in Baghdad's Sadr City, a squad of GIs raided a house, slapped a set of plastic cuffs on the lone occupant and left him outside. But the squad found only a single AK-47, allowed for self-defense under U.S. military rules. Spc. Allen Crandall partially disabled the weapon, then cut the Iraqi's cuffs and led him inside with Sgt. Michael Williams. Crandall set the AK-47 on a table by the door and turned to leave. As he did, he says he heard Williams saying, "I feel threatened." Then two shots from Williams's M-16. Testifying on the Aug. 28 incident last week in Iraq, Crandall told an Army panel: " said the Iraqi went for his weapon."

Something went monstrously wrong in "the 1-41"—the U.S. Army's First Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment. Out of 500 or so battalion members, Williams is one of six now facing murder charges in five separate shooting incidents since August. Two of the victims were also 1-41 troops, gunned down at a Kansas farmhouse in September. In a courtroom last week at Camp Victory, outside Baghdad, 1-41 members described a dysfunctional unit with too much bloodlust and not enough accountability. Witnesses said the battalion's Charlie Company held a macabre contest to see who would get the first confirmed kill of the unit's second Iraq tour.

Three 1-41 members gave their lives on the battalion's first tour, last year. After a few months' rest in Fort Riley, Kans., the battalion began a new tour this summer. Things soon went bad. On Aug. 18, Company C was hunting insurgents in Sadr City. Williams's squad stopped a dump truck, and an Iraqi climbed out. "Light him up!" the sergeant ordered, according to testimony, and the squad opened fire, killing the unarmed man. Williams and a squadmate reportedly got into an argument over which of them had scored Company C's first kill.

-MORE-

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Hope it's not a dupe. I did a search. But if it is, Mods, please delete.

[UL_Approved]

1. Just like Abu Gharabi

They knew of people with problems, and put them in to place anyway. I wonder how many other units have this problem.

[AndyTiedye]

2. Like The Bit From "Alice's Restaurant"

draftee: "I want to kill, kill, kill..."

shrink: "You're our boy!"

[UL_Approved]

3. Agreed. n/t

[LibertyorDeath]

4. So much "democracy" so little time

Nothing warms the heart quite like Another story of America's finest

"Lighting up!" unarmed Iraqi civilians.

I'm sure these guys are just a "few bad apples"

Bringing democracy to Iraq one dead civilian at a time.