Wednesday, September 13, 2006

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Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr. sat quietly in a military courtroom here Tuesday, taking notes and whispering occasionally to his lawyers as military prosecutors sought a court-martial but not the death penalty for his suspected part in the killing last April of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, an Iraqi civilian.
The military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding was the third in a series of pretrial hearings involving eight servicemen accused of killing Mr. Awad.

The above is from Carolyn Marshall's "Death Penalty Not Sought for Marine in Killing of Iraqi" in this morning's New York Times and, shocker, unlike when presenting the defense's argument (before they could), Marshall can actually name a victim. Those late to the party can start by reading "Abeer" (The Third Estate Sunday Review), move on to "NYT: Rendering Abeer Qasim Hamza invisible again" and then close with Marshall's and Robert F. Worth's "G.I. Crime Photos May Be Evidence." Considering Marshall's record there and the paper's record in reporting on the current case, we'll move on quickly.

Better reporting can be found in Rick Rogers and Dave Hasemyer's "Marine distraught during interrogation, agent testifies" (San Diego Union-Tribune):

Under questioning yesterday by lead prosecutor Lt. Col. John Baker, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's special agents said Shumate gave statements about the killing on two occasions in May.
The most potentially damaging testimony came from special agent Kelly Garbo.
Garbo said that during a two-hour interrogation session on May 11 at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, Shumate broke down and signed a statement after she confronted him with information gathered from fellow Marines in his unit.
"I said that other members of the squad had been honest and truthful . . . and that we knew what had actually happened," Garbo recounted. She testified that several of the Hamdaniya defendants had implicated themselves in the killing of Awad.
Garbo recalled how Shumate became so distraught that he snatched a piece of paper and wrote a statement on one side. On the other side was the purported crime scene drawn by another defendant, she testified.

Nazila Fathi and Edward Wong are left with the task of both putting the trip to Iran (by puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki) and the events of yesterday in some perspective. Attempting to be bi-national, they do about as good as can be expected (and far better than the Bubble Head Pundit waxing on about Condi Rice elsewhere in the paper) with "In Iran, Iraqi Is Offered Aid in Trying to Quell Violence:"

Violence flared across parts of Iraq on Tuesday. In western Baghdad, a car bomb aimed at an American convoy killed six civilians and wounded 15, an Interior Ministry official said. A homemade bomb killed one policeman and one civilian and wounded six civilians.
An Iraqi policeman was shot dead in southwest Baghdad, and two bodies and a human head were discovered in three neighborhoods. The head had a note attached: “This is the destiny of those who work with the Americans.”
Two civilians were killed in separate shootings in Diyala Province. A police captain in Mosul was killed, and one Iraqi Army soldier was killed and three were wounded by a bomb south of Kirkuk.

That's not all the reported violence yesterday. It's a real shame the paper can't cover what happens on the ground in its own story. Instead it tries to squeeze what happens on the ground into Saddam trial coverage or into diplomatic trips out of Iraq, you'd think they cover it as a stand alone. Instead the paper comes off like Nancy Sinatra singing, "Yesterday it rained in Tennessee/ I heard it also rained in Tallahassee/ But not a drop fell on little ol' me/ Cause I was in su-su-sugar town." (Which pretty much sums up the administration's attitude as well.)

On corpses yesterday, CNN is sticking with its Baghdad count and they have backing. Amit R. Paley's "At Least 62 Bodies Found in Baghdad" (Washington Post):

Nearly 100 people were killed or found dead in a series of bloody incidents throughout the Iraqi capital over the past 24 hours, authorities said.
At least 62 unidentified bullet-riddled corpses--all bearing signs of torture--have been found throughout the city since last night, said Brig. Gen. Abdullah Mahmood of the Interior Ministry.

Community note: The snapshot will probably go up late (or else be much briefer), I'm still under the weather and I've also got two things on Iraq today. Hopefully, it won't be as late going up as it was yesterday. (And no, the first entry this morning wasn't complete when posted. A title and other things were added to it -- I was sick to my stomach and it was get something up then or nothing was going up for at least a half hour.) I believe someone noted another Washington Post highlight in this morning's e-mails (Paley, above, is noted by me) but I'm blanking. If I remember, it'll go into the snapshot later today.

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