First casualty of war...

The Pentagon seems to be hoping that if they keep denying that the U.S. military massacred an Iraqi wedding party, Americans will come to believe them. Sadly, they may be right.

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."

"Bad people"? In addition to the callousness of his remarks, such simplistic vilification does nothing to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

The general's denials are contradicted by every other piece of independent evidence: reporters on the scene, information from hospitals, accounts of survivors and a wedding video that just turned up. On the video, for example, a stocky man with close-cropped hair can be seen playing an electric organ at a wedding. Then in another tape filmed a day later in Ramadi, the same musician is lying dead--his face clearly visible in a burial shroud, dressed in the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed.

A CNN anchor this morning threw in a line that militants may have been hiding out among the wedding party. Even if this were true, would "neutralizing" several suspected militants justify killing 11 women and 14 children (at last count)?

Initially, the military denied that any women or children were killed. With bodies piling up, however, Kimmitt was forced to admit that a "handful of women" - perhaps four to six - were "caught up in the engagement...They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft."

May have died?

One survivor, Haleema Shihab, 32, hid out the night, wounded and bleeding, in a bomb crater with her stepdaughter. She said that American soldiers showed up and one, laughing, kicked her to see if she were alive. "I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," she said.

According to the Guardian, American commanders remain unrepentant.

Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was scathing of those who suggested a wedding party had been hit. "How many people go to the middle of the desert ... to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the nearest civilization? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive."

When reporters asked him about footage on Arabic television of a child's body being lowered into a grave, he replied: "I have not seen the pictures but bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."

Bad things do indeed happen in war. Mattis would do well to remember, howver, that U.S. soldiers are subject to the Geneva Convention and not immune from legal prosecution for war crimes.

Complete stories here and here.