News-Info-Alerts

Re: US Investigates Possible War Crimes

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: April 10, 2003

"U.S. investigates possible war crimes against the 507th

By Billy House
The Arizona Republic

WASHINGTON The treatment and deaths of Pfc. Lori Piestewa, the first American servicewoman to die in Iraq, and other members of the Army's ambushed 507th Maintenance Unit are being investigated as potential war crimes, a Pentagon spokesman says.

"I think it's safe to say that everything being done surrounding that particular unit is being conducted in terms of potential war crimes," Army Maj. Ted Wadsworth said.

Wadsworth said that includes forensic tests and evidence "from many of the settings" tied to the Army unit including the burial site where Piestewa, 23, a Native American, seven other members of her unit, and another soldier were unearthed last week.

Their bodies were recovered when U.S. Special Forces stormed a hospital to rescue Pfc. Jessica Lynch, another member of the 507th.

The bodies are at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del., and likely will not be released to their families until at least the end of the week because of the documentation and evidence-collection necessary for any war crimes prosecution.

Five members of Piestewa's unit are listed as prisoners of war. Shortly after the unit's ambush near the town of Nasiriyah, those five were shown on Iraqi state-run TV being questioned by their captors. The footage also showed at least five bodies with bullet wounds in their heads.

After viewing that footage, Pentagon officials accused Iraq of executing prisoners of war. They have not commented specifically as to when and how Piestewa and the others were killed or how they may have been treated before their deaths.

Meanwhile, Pentagon and State Department officials said Monday that the United States is preparing for postwar tribunals.

W. Hays Parks, special assistant to the Army judge advocate general, said the tape aired on Iraqi TV shows "fundamental violations of the Geneva Convention obligations," including possible violations of prohibitions "against willful killing, torture, inhumane treatment or the willful causing of great suffering or serious injury to body or health of the POW."

Parks said the tape also showed captive soldiers "answering questions in humiliating and insulting circumstances designed to make them objects of public curiosity, in violation of the prisoner of war convention."

Pierre-Richard Prosper, U.S. ambassador for war crime issues, said the United States has ruled out prosecutions in the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands, the world's first permanent war crimes court, because neither Iraq nor the United States is party to the treaty that created the court."