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It was billions to take out a herd of sheep. Oh, not to mention the thousands of human deaths perpetrated by the corrupt Bush administration, at least we got them terrorist ovines! Naturally, the first stories that came out were that this attack took out Saddam's secret convoy. Careful of the space:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24409- 2003Jun23.html?nav=hptop_ts
Iraqi Villagers Say Strike Was Case of Mistaken Identity
Attack on Home, Convoy Breeds Anger
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 24, 2003; Page A15
U.S. officials backed away from their initial assessments of whether the attack early Thursday near the village of Dhib killed top officials in the former Iraqi government, saying they had picked up no indications since the attack that Saddam Hussein or his sons, Uday and Qusay, had been in the convoy.
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Residents said the U.S. blitz lasted two hours under cover of night. And they said they were left wondering why a village -- whose biggest change in the wake of the government's fall is that its sheep can graze closer to the Syrian border -- is now occupied by American forces.
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At about 1:30 a.m., as the four trucks burned, the first of about five missiles struck Hamad's brick house, he said. Although everyone was sleeping outside, debris killed his sister-in-law, 20-year-old Hakima Khalil, and her daughter, Maha. Khalil's husband, Mohammed, was wounded in the foot. Hamad, his 24-year-old brother Mahmoud and his mother, Rasmiya Mishaal, 62, were also hurt. Mahmoud suffered the severest injuries, with deep cuts to his back and face.
After the attack began, villagers said cries pierced the air. Some contended that cluster bombs were used. Other villagers insisted that was wrong, that it was heavy machine-gun fire. They said they were saved by fleeing their homes. "When they hit Ahmed's house, it was like an alarm," said a neighbor, Mohammed Naim, 29. "Everybody ran away from their homes."
By the time the barrage ended, four houses were destroyed, along with two storage shacks, residents said. Villagers sitting in the hospital listed their losses like an insurance claim: three pickups, three tractors, one truck and 13 heads of sheep.
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So, what ARE we fighting for? The right to obliterate a village of sheep herders? What possible threat was the military responding to when it fired missiles at the houses of the village? Will anyone be held responsible for this unprovoked attack? Or will it just be another case of "bad intel" where the deaths are just chalked up to "Oh well!"
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