U.S. apology for killings late for Iraqi mourners

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Angry mourners swarmed this central Iraqi city Saturday, firing into the air, attacking journalists and cursing the American occupation as they followed the flag-draped coffins of eight Iraqi police killed in a friendly fire incident involving U.S. troops.

The U.S. military apologized Saturday for the shooting that killed nine people -- the eight Iraqis and a Jordanian guard -- and badly damaged a hospital. U.S. troops only opened fire after they were attacked "by unknown forces," the military said.

But the explanation did not defuse the anger washing over Fallujah, a city of 200,000 in Iraq's most troubled region. The shooting was the worst case of friendly fire since major hostilities in Iraq were declared over May 1, and it served to intensify talk here of the heavy-handedness of American troops.

"We have had enough of the Americans killing us and then just saying 'Oh, sorry!"' said Salam Mohammed, 60, a Fallujah resident and a relative of some of the victims.

"We want the Americans to leave our country because they have brought us only death," said Taleb Hameed, a 30-year-old schoolteacher. "We are fed up with their apologies. We will continue our resistance."

On Saturday afternoon, the eight coffins were carried into a mosque for religious rites before they were given to family members for burial. Outside, gunshots erupted throughout Fallujah as mourners fired into the air. Some in the crowd chanted: "There is no God but Allah, and America is the enemy of Allah."

In an ominous message, Fawzi Namiq, the mosque's imam, said through loudspeakers: "Save your bullets for the chests of the enemy."

In the streets, angry residents roughed up reporters who came to witness the ceremony. A clergyman grabbed one armed man and prevented him from shooting at a departing Associated Press Television News car as it sped from the city. A CNN cameraman was beaten and an Associated Press photographer was hit in the face.

The U.S. military issued an apology for the shooting and said an investigation had begun. However, military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said the Americans only fired after they were "attacked from a truck by unknown forces."

"Coalition forces," he said, "immediately returned fire and the subsequent engagement lasted approximately three hours. Regrettably during the incident extensive damage was done to the Jordanian hospital and several security personnel were killed, including eight Iraqis and one Jordanian national."

The military, he said, wished "to express our deepest regret for this incident to the families who have lost loved ones and express our sincerest condolences."

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Kuwait earlier today, ahead of a trip to Iraq, where he will become the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country since the war.

Powell has said the huge U.S. investment in Iraq in lives and money would be at risk if a transfer of authority from American control to Iraqi control took place too soon.

"You have to have a government that is not only there with the doors open, but has to be functioning. ... in a way that people will have confidence in it. The worst thing one can do is to set them up for failure," Powell said earlier.

The shootout began in the early-morning hours Friday as several Iraqi police vehicles approached a U.S. checkpoint near the Jordanian military hospital here.

Iraqi policemen who survived recounted from their hospital beds Saturday how they begged the American soldiers to stop shooting, screaming in Arabic and English that they were police.