More on Ali Fadhil's Rude Awakening

The Guardian is elaborating on the story it broke yesterday that award-winning Iraqi journalist Ali Fadhil had his home violently invaded in a raid by U.S. soldiers over the weekend. Fadhil claims:

It began at half past midnight on Saturday when explosives blew apart the three entrances to my house. We thought we had been caught in a bombing, but then a rifle sneaked round our bedroom door and shot a couple of bullets blindly; suddenly our room was filled with the wild sounds of US soldiers.

My three-year-old daughter Sarah woke to this nightmare. She pushed herself on to me and shouted "Daddy, Americans! They will take you! No, no, not like this daddy ..." She tried to say something to one of the soldiers but her tears stopped her from speaking. Instead of blaming the soldier I could see she was blaming me. I tried to calm her down but as I did so the soldier threw me on to the ground and tied me.

They then took me downstairs and made me sit in the living room while they smashed every piece of furniture we have. There were about 20 soldiers inside the house and several others on guard on the roof. A blue-eyed captain came to me holding my Handycam camcorder and questioned me aggressively: "Can you explain to me why you have this footage?"

The details of the raid, which I blogged about here yesterday, are very disturbing if true.

U.S forces should have better training and fire discipline than to blindly start shooting around corners in civilian households. American soldiers should have better discipline than to randomly smash all of the Fadhil family's furniture in a random, spiteful manner. If there is any credence to this story at all, then there should be a through investigation by the authorities.

But is there credibility in Fadhil's story? That is turning out to be an intriguing question.

As I stated yesterday, random "spray and pray" gunfire is not part of any military room clearing training of which I've ever heard. It is extremely counterproductive, as rifle fire in the confines of a dwelling is as potentially dangerous to the shooter's entry team and the shooter himself as it is to any potential hostiles.

Likewise, random, purposeful violence against civilians and their property is at odds with American goals in Iraq. I find it hard to believe that any American officer or senior NCOs would allow the destruction Fadhil alleges occurred in his home at the hands of American soldiers.

For that matter, I find it hard to believe that "a small room, two metres [sic] square, with wooden walls, a refrigerator and an oval table in the middle" could also have enough room for three adult males. All this in a 6'x6' room? Again Fadhil's story seems suspect.

But this story is also easily verified, at least in part.

Gunfire--even just a couple of bullets fired "blindly" as Fadhil alleges-- leaves copious physical evidence behind. Anyone familiar with the various "CSI" television shows know that bullets make hole in what they hit, and that bullets shatter on hard targets, leaving identifiable fragments. They also leave cartridge casings, and even an untrained eye can tell the difference between the 7.62x39mm round used by Iraqi forces and the 5.56x45mm cartridge favored by American forces.

I sincerely hope that Ali Fadhil would not would not manufacture or embellish a story in the hopes of ginning up interest in a Guardian films project he is developing for Channel 4, but at this point, with so many inconsistencies in his story, I'd have to say that anything at all is possible.