Bush might want to wait before declaring victory in Iraq.

To the US troops it was self-defence. To the Iraqis it was murder

To the Americans it was justified self-defence, to most residents it was murder.

What is beyond dispute is that 14 Iraqis were dead yesterday and 70 wounded lay in the main hospital, surrounded by angry family members, after US troops fired on a crowd of demonstrators.

The shooting late on Monday night was the bloodiest incident since the fall of Saddam Hussein. It occurred 40 miles west of Baghdad in an overwhelmingly Sunni town which had been quiet for two weeks until the Americans arrived.

By yesterday the mood was changed. Tempers were highly charged as demonstrators chanted slogans and waved their fists across coils of razor wire at men of the 82nd Air borne Division, the US army's elite paratroopers, who had commandeered a school in a residential street.
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U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protesters Again, Killing 2

United States soldiers opened fire here today on marchers protesting a clash late Monday night in which 15 anti-American demonstrators were reported killed by American troops. The city's mayor and hospital officials said two protesters were killed in today's incident and 14 were wounded.

A United States Army officer said soldiers in a convoy passing the demonstrators were shot at, and then returned fire. There was no immediate indication of any American casualties.

About 1,000 residents marching down Falluja's main street stopped today in front of a battalion headquarters of the United States Army's 82nd Airborne Division, in a compound formerly occupied by Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The demonstrators were carrying signs condemning Monday night's shooting.

Protesters threw rocks and shoes at the compound and troops opened fire at about 10:30 a.m., scattering the demonstrators.
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More trouble brewing in Iraq

Bush's "Iraq Victory Lap 2003" continues unabated, with the latest glorious news:

The People's Mujahedeen, an Iranian terrorist organization based in Iraq, is clearly one of the baddies. While not allied with Al Qaeda, the group killed several Americans in the 70s and supported the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979. In other words, these guys are worse than Abu Abbas -- the terrorist whose capture was mightly trumpeted by the administration.

So the group and its 10,000 fighters are in Iraq, in view of US forces. What should the US do? Eradicate them of course. They are terrorists, after all, and isn't that what we do with terrorists? Isn't that one reason we launched a war that cost $80 billion, caused hundreds of allied casualties and thousands of dead Iraqis?

But here's the rub -- the group was deemed a terrorist group by Bill Clinton, and being Clinton's terrorists is not the same as being Bush's terrorists. Got it? So, the US has signed a cease fire agreement with the group that lets them keep their weapons, vehicles and other equipment.
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Army Seizes Massive Files On Iraq's Secret Prisoners

Backed by tanks, U.S. troops have seized millions of Iraqi intelligence files from a citizens group involved in a daunting search for those who disappeared into the secret prisons of fallen president Saddam Hussein.

U.S. Army officers said the operation was meant to protect the files from former government officials who might have an interest in destroying evidence. The records will be translated from Arabic and reviewed before eventually being returned to an interim Iraqi government once it is in place, U.S. officers said.

But watching U.S. troops remove what the citizens group said were the last of 4.2 million files gathered since Baghdad's fall on April 9 infuriated many officials of the Committee of Free Iraqi Prisoners and angered other Iraqis who gather each day in a small courtyard to read lists of prisoners' names. Shouts of anger and groans rose from the crowd, as some surged forward to see the files before they were removed.
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Top Iraqi Prisoners All Denying Saddam Had Weapons of Mass Destruction