Bad Voodoo

Let me get this straight...

1. IED hits civilian bus in southern Iraq

2. US/Iraqi military convoy stops and renders aid.

3. Washington Post reports US military attacked civilian bus

But the driver, Zeki Abdul Qader, and a passenger, Qasim Salih Jubur, said they believed the U.S. soldiers opened fire on the bus after it had already safely passed what they were later told was a spot where a roadside bomb had exploded. They said their bus was struck with bullets seconds before they were hit with the explosion, which they believed was some sort of rocket or grenade fired from the U.S. convoy.

"The Americans shot us," Jubur said. "One hundred percent it was the Americans."
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Qader, the driver, said he was reaching the tail end of a long military convoy when he heard gunfire and the sound of bullets striking his bus.

"They shot me with small arms from the beginning of the bus to the end, the whole side, then they shot this rocket," Qader, 58, said in a telephone interview. The explosion tore through three rows near the middle of the bus -- four passengers per row--killing 12 people almost instantly, he said. Four others on the bus were also killed, he said.

"The bus turned to all black smoke, you could see nothing, and all the windows blew out except one or two," he said. "The bus went off the road and I tried hard to keep it from flipping over."

After the bus stopped, U.S. soldiers cordoned off the surrounding area and Iraqi forces arrived at the scene. Qader and Jubur said they themselves did not see American soldiers firing but heard the gunfire and were told by the Iraqi soldiers that the American troops had fired.

Abbas al-Khafaji, director of the funeral home in Najaf where the bodies were taken for burial preparation, said one infant and at least four women had bullet holes in their bodies in addition to shrapnel wounds. Ali Hussein, 37, the uncle of the slain 6-month-old, Abbas Jihad, confirmed that the boy had two bullet wounds in the chest.

4. One of the GIs involved was a milblogger:

When I was a boy my Dad used to tell me don't believe everything you hear, read or see. Again, I find myself reminded of his wisdom. Here in the last couple days I have been reading, hearing and watching the complete and utter failure in journalism. The other day the boys of Bad Voo Doo and I were on a mission in southern Iraq and where only a short distance from what has been reported as a travesty, tragedy and another example of the reckless US Army.

While assisting a bomb blast that struck a civilian bus that was in the vicinity of the convoy immediately to our front I did not see a single news reporter or media person. By the time I got to my destination the reports were already online about the casualties and conduct of the US Forces. Pray tell where were the media getting their information?

By the way, the milblogger on the scene was Toby Nunn, a member of the Bad Voodoo Platoon featured in tonight's Frontline..