US, you have a phone call

Nuremberg is on the line.

There simply is no doubt that in its attack on Fallujah the US and US troops committed war crimes. There simply is no doubt that the leadership that sent the soldiers in, the officers that laid down the rules of combat, and some of the soldiers themselves should be in the dock, facing the condemnation of a wrathful world. Repeated reports of deliberate targeting of civilians and the wounded make a farce of claims that the troops are showing "restraint" or making "careful distinctions."

- There is the testimony of Bilal Hussein, a resident of Fallujah and an AP photographer, who witnessed murders of civilians. He initially stayed in the city to cover the assault, having sent his family away.

In the hours and days that followed, heavy bombing raids and thunderous artillery shelling turned Hussein's northern Jolan neighborhood into a zone of rubble and death. The walls of his house were pockmarked by coalition fire.

"Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out," he said.

"There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days."

Finally, Hussein had had enough and decided to make a break for it. He planned to swim the Euphrates River as an escape route.

"I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."

"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim."

- There is the fact that on Thursday, the New York Times reports,

a stream of refugees, about 300 men, women and children, were detained by American soldiers as they left southern Falluja by car and on foot. The women and children were allowed to proceed. The men were tested for any residues left by the handling of explosives. All tested negative, but they were sent back.

The Geneva Conventions and the laws of war forbid returning refugees to a combat zone. University of Houston law professor Jordan Paust, a former Army prosecutor, delicately called the incident "highly problematical conduct." James Ross of Human Rights Watch was more direct: "If that's what happened, it would be a war crime."

- There is the pool report videotape by Kevin Sites of NBC television of a Marine shooting down a wounded and unarmed Iraqi prisoner on Saturday. Sites said that three other wounded prisoners in the mosque apparently also had been shot again by the Marines.

The events on the videotape began as some of the Marines from the unit accompanied by Sites approached the mosque on Saturday, a day after it was stormed by other Marines.

Gunfire can be heard from inside the mosque, and at its entrance, Marines who were already in the building emerge. They are asked by an approaching Marine lieutenant if there were insurgents inside and if the Marines had shot any of them. A Marine can be heard responding affirmatively. The lieutenant then asks if they were armed and fellow Marine shrugs.

Sites' account said the wounded men, who he said were prisoners and who were hurt in the previous day's attack, had been shot again by the Marines on the Saturday visit.

The videotape showed two of the wounded men propped against the wall and Sites said they were bleeding to death. According his report, a third wounded man appeared already dead, while a fourth was severely wounded but breathing. The fifth was covered by a blanket but did not appear to have been shot again after the Marines returned. It was the fourth man who was shown being shot.

- That's not the only video. Another by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, available here, shows a Marine patrol locating a wounded sniper in an alley. A Marine climbs on a barrel, shoots into the alley, then steps down, saying "He's done." (The exact incident starts at about 1:25 into the video but watch it all.)

There is some chance of prosecution of the soldiers in Sites' report because they were caught on tape by a credible eyewitness. The chances of prosecution of those who forced refugees back into the combat zone are small, of those who shot civilians swimming across the Euphrates are miniscule, of those who sent these soldiers into battle, none at all.

It doesn't change the fact that clear, repeated, war crimes took place in the attack on Fallujah. If they get away with it, that just makes it worse.

Footnote: Just in case you thought this was just heat of battle, take a look at this video. It comes from the early days of the invasion.