U.S. Vows To Bring Fallujah Mutilator To Justice

Addressing 479 new graduates from the Iraqi police academy in the capital Baghdad, U.S. administrator Paul Bremer vowed that this "inexcusable and despicable" crime "will not go unpunished."

He asserted that the four contractors "not died in vain" and that this "will not derail the march toward stability and democracy in Iraq."

Gunmen had ambushed two four-wheel-drive vehicles in Fallujah Wednesday, March 31, killing four American contractors working for the North Carolina-based Blackwater Security Consulting, before angry crowds mutilated the charred remains of two of the victims.

The White House condemned the "horrific" attack but vowed to stay the course in Iraq."

"These are horrific attacks by people who are trying to prevent democracy from moving forward," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

"We condemn these attacks on the strongest possible terms.

"There are some who want to intimidate the Iraqi people, who want to intimidate the coalition, they want to intimidate the international community and they cannot," he said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also denounced the mutilations, saying they "violated both Islamic and international norms of conduct," calling on all parties to the conflict "to respect the sanctity of the dead."

War is decreed in Islam in self defense and its aim is to ward off aggression.

Fighting should be directed only against fighting troops, and not to non-fighting personnel, and this is in compliance with the Qur’anic verse that reads: "Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not, aggressors." (Al-Baqarah: 190)

And even in cases of aggression, Islam forbids the mutilation of enemy soldiers’ bodies, even if they do such a despicable crime to the bodies of Muslim soldiers.

Shocking Images

The pictures of the charred, mutilated bodies filled the U.S. airwaves, recalling the grisly scene surrounding the deaths of U.S. servicemen in Somalia a decade ago.

The three main American broadcast networks all began their Wednesday evening newscasts with video of the grisly aftermath of the Fallujah attack, warning viewers about the graphic images.

ABC and CBS television showed pictures of the bodies being pulled out of a burning vehicle, hacked by angry Iraqis, dragged behind a car and strung up on a bridge, but electronically blurred the images of the corpses.

Both networks noted the similarities with the abuse meted out to the corpses of American soldiers killed in Somalia in October 1993 in an ill-fated raid depicted in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."

The attack in Mogadishu came during what should have been a relatively straightforward U.S. search and capture mission that went badly wrong.

But by the end of the exercise, 18 Americans were killed, hundreds of Somalis lost their lives and thousands were injured.

Pictures of a dead American serviceman being dragged through the street aired constantly on U.S. television, and led to the eventual evacuation of U.S. forces from Somalia.

The other major network, NBC, edited the Fallujah pictures so that the corpses were less visible, but also devoted the first segment of its broadcast to the ambush.

CNN initially declined to show any images of the bodies of the victims but repeatedly ran footage of their burning vehicle and jubilant Iraqis.

In a report later in the day it showed pictures of the charred bodies hanging from a bride as a CNN correspondent said: "Some images are necessary to fully show the extent of the violence."

CNN anchor Paula Zahn asked viewers "Does today change the way you look at the war?"

The top U.S. dailies screamed with headlines about the mutilations and the Iraqi mob who did it, with the most gruesome photos published by The Washington Post — people beating a body near a burning car, and The New York Times — two bodies hanging from a bridge.

With a more discrete photo of a burning car, The Wall Street Journal published the only editorial on the mob killing, saying it was a "wake-up call to the occupation forces that democracy will have a hard time taking root in Iraq so long as justice takes a holiday," and calling for the "swift arrest and visible punishment" of the culprits.