How Innocent are the “Innocents” at Haditha?

Go to Google, enter “Safa Younis”, and you’ll get 16,800 pieces about her on the Web. Enter Iman Waleed, and you’ll get 25,900.

These two children in neighboring houses in Haditha tell heart-rending stories of Marines brutally killing their relatives.

Yet, Iman reveals in one interview that she knew in advance of the IED that would explode to kill the passing Marines. If the child knew, isn’t it likely their adults knew? Isn’t it likely that they may have more than knew?

The unnamed interviewer doesn’t follow-up, any more that the earlier “Iraqi journalism student” did. Anymore than the many MSM remote reporters and commentators who so frequently repeat the childrens’ likely tutored comments.

For example, here’s the ABC narrative:

May 28, 2006 — After a small group of Marines stormed the Younis family home in Haditha last November, everybody inside was killed — except one person.

ABC News has obtained an interview with the sole survivor, 12-year-old Safa Younis. The interview was done by a local Iraqi journalism student about one week after the killings on Nov. 19, 2005….

On the new tape shot by an Iraqi journalism student and given to ABC News by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group in Iraq, Younis, soft-spoken, with rounded cheeks and a headscarf, begins by calmly telling the interviewer, "My name is Safa Younis. I'm 12 years old."
The interviewer asks, "What did the American soldiers do when they broke into the house?"

"They knocked at the door," Younis says. "My father went to open it, they shot him dead from behind the door, and then they shot him again after they opened the door."

She describes hearing the Marines go through the rest of the house, shooting and setting off a grenade before getting to the bedroom where she was with her mother and siblings.

"Then comes one American soldier and shot [at] us all," she says. "I pretended to be dead … and he did not know about me."

What one doesn’t see investigated is the “Iraqi journalism student” : What promting or editing or agenda was brought to the interview?

What one, also, doesn’t see featured in the many repetitions across the MSM, across the world, of Safa Younis’ narrative is this follow-up interview conducted for CNN by an unnamed “human rights organization”, that was broadcast last Wednesday. See highlighted portion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's plenty of evidence civilians were killed in Haditha -- 24 bodies were counted.

At the morgue, women and children among the dead. Many images too graphic to show. But the dead can't speak.

So at CNN's request, a human rights organization went back to Haditha with a camera to interview survivors. The interviewer found three, all children.

For each, the story begins here. Where a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying American Marines, killing one of them.

It was 7:30 in the morning. 12-year-old Safa Younis was getting ready for school. She says she was the only survivor in her house. Eight relatives killed.

SAFA YOUNIS, FAMILY KILLED (through translator): A bomb exploded on the street outside. We heard the sound of the explosion, and we heard shouting. We were inside the house when U.S. forces broke through the door. They killed my father in the kitchen. The American forces entered the house and started shooting with their guns. They killed my mother and my sister Noor (ph). They killed her when they shot her in the head. She was only 15 years old. My other sister was shot with seven bullets in the head. She was only 10 years old. And my brother, Mohammed (ph), was hiding under the bed when the U.S. military hit him with the butt of a gun, and they started shooting him under the bed. The U.S. military then shot me, and I was showered in blood. We couldn't leave the house because the U.S. military surrounded the area with a large number of soldiers.

CHILCOTE: Safa's cousins, 8-year-old Abdul Rahman Walleed (ph) and 9-year-old Iman Walleed (ph) were next door in the first house entered by the Marines. They say seven were killed in this house

IMAN WALEED (ph), SEVEN KILLED IN HOUSE (through translator): They entered the house, they burned the room, and my father was inside the room. Then they attacked my grandmother and grandfather and threw a bomb. Me and my brother, Abdul Rahman, were injured. I saw how they killed my mother, Asma (ph), and I saw how they killed my grandmother.

CHILCOTE: Iman (ph) is initially poised. She has clearly told the story many times. She needs no questions to prompt her.

IMAN (through translator): My grandmother, she decided to open the kitchen door. Before she opened it, she said, maybe they will break it otherwise. I wish she hadn't.

CHILCOTE: Iman's (ph) brother, Abdul Rahman, doesn't say much. The interviewer asked him to show his wounds.

Off camera, a voice in the room is heard asking, he didn't have a weapon. What danger did he pose? But there is an intriguing variation in Iman's (ph) account. The third time she tells it, she says she was expecting the bomb.

IMAN (ph) (through translator): I was planning to go to school. I was about to get out of bed. I knew the bomb would explode, so I covered my ears. The bomb exploded. The bomb struck an armored vehicle. I don't know if it was a humvee or an armored vehicle. When the bomb exploded, they came straight to our house.

CHILCOTE: The question is, was her expectation of the explosion a premonition? A fear based on the sound of the passing convoy? Or was it based on some knowledge? The interviewer does not follow up and says the 9-year-old got confused and got her story mixed up.

All three children were wounded. Iman (ph) and Abdul Rahman were treated at a U.S. hospital in Baghdad. Safa Younis says she wants tough justice for those who killed her family.

YOUNIS (through translator): I want them to be tortured and killed. And I want them to leave our country.

CHILCOTE: The people in these houses were not the only ones to have been killed. Others died in this house, too. But the survivors here did not want to talk.

Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Baghdad.

Repeat: "The interviewer does not follow up and says the 9-year-old got confused and got her story mixed up."

Sounds like a "cover-up" of a conspiracy to me, the cover-up by the MSM lynch mob and the conspiracy by the Iraqis culpable or seeking to undermine America's forces.