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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
May 15, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- A day after denying a shoot-to-kill policy against Iraqi looters, U.S. forces wounded a looter from a group they said fired on Americans.
Looters fired on 101st Airborne Assault Division soldiers Thursday morning in Mosul, said the U.S. Central Command. Soldiers returned fire on the looters, wounding one, and four others escaped, it said.
"Coalition forces continue to actively patrol Iraq to make it safe to conduct humanitarian assistance operations," Central Command said in a statement issued from the occupying force's offices in nearby Kuwait.
No U.S. casualties were reported, but the incident "highlights the dangerous nature" of the security job in Iraq weeks after the major combat ended, the statement said.
Under pressure to impose order on a still-lawless capital, U.S. military commanders Wednesday defended their approach to keeping Baghdad safe and said they were aggressively targeting looters. But they said they would not authorize a shoot-to-kill policy.
Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said that people arrested for looting in the Iraqi capital are being held for about three weeks. Previously they had been held two days.
He said a total of 600 were currently detained at a holding facility at Baghdad International Airport. Those who committed a crime with the aid of a weapon would be detained until Iraq's judicial authorities are fully operational again and are able to take charge of them, he said.
Blount also said U.S. forces reserved the right to protect themselves against attacks and looters.
"We're not going to go out and shoot children that are picking up a piece of wood out of a factory and carrying it away or a bag of cement," he said. "Our soldiers have the right to defend themselves, and have. And if a looter is carrying a weapon and the soldier feels threatened, of course he is going to engage."
Pentagon officials said Thursday's shooting was the result not of a changed policy on looting but of a consistent policy on that right to self-defense.
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