United States overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer vowed on Thursday that the grisly killing of four civilian contractors will ”not go unpunished”, amid reactions of horror at images of the burning and dismemberment of the Americans.
Addressing 479 new graduates from the Iraqi police academy in the capital, Bremer said the four, along with five US troops killed in the same area west of Baghdad by a roadside bomb, ”have not died in vain”.
Describing Wednesday’s incident in Fallujah as ”inexcusable and despicable”, Bremer said insurgents fighting the US-led coalition ”will not derail the march toward stability and democracy in Iraq”.
Gunmen ambushed the contractors’ vehicles on Wednesday in Fallujah, setting them on fire and killing the four occupants. Angry crowds hacked up the charred remains, hanged some of them from a bridge and finally threw them to dogs or in the river, witnesses said.
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said: ”We condemn these attacks on the strongest possible terms.
”These are horrific attacks by people who are trying to prevent democracy from moving forward,” he said, adding: ”But democracy is taking root. There are some who want to intimidate the Iraqi people, who want to intimidate the coalition, they want to intimidate the international community and they cannot.”
The spokesperson said: ”We will not turn back from our efforts.”
In Paris, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said: ”France strongly condemns the barbaric and violent acts targeting foreign civilians in Iraq.”
Herve Ladsous added: ”Such behaviour shows how important it is to reverse the spiral of violence in this country and redouble efforts to ensure the success of the process of political transition.”
US networks noted the similarities between Wednesday’s incident and the abuse meted out to the corpses of American soldiers killed in Somalia in October 1993 in an ill-fated raid depicted in the book and movie Black Hawk Down.
Pictures of a dead American serviceman being dragged through the street aired constantly on US television, and led to the eventual evacuation of US forces from Somalia.
Residents of the Iraqi capital expressed shock, disgust and shame, saying there had been an offence to Islamic principles.
As the horrendous images were splashed across television screens and newspapers, the US security company that employed them said it would not identify the dead men.
”The names of the victims will not be released out of respect for their familes,” Blackwater Security Consulting said in a statement.
”The graphic images of the unprovoked attack and subsequent heinous mistreatment of our friends exhibit the extraordinary conditions under which we voluntarily work to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people,” the company said.
Blackwater said civilian contractors work ”side by side” with US-led coalition forces and Iraqis to ”provide essential goods and services like food, water, electricity and vital security to the Iraqi citizens and coalition members”.
”Our tasks are dangerous and while we feel sadness for our fallen colleagues, we also feel pride and satisfaction that we are making a difference for the people of Iraq,” the company said.
A source close to private security firms in Baghdad said three Blackwater vehicles, each carrying two men, were escorting a food supply truck for the US military air base in Habbaniya, near Fallujah, when they were attacked.
Iraq’s interim Interior Minister, Nuri Badran, pledged that his forces would do their best to find the Fallujah killers and bring them to justice.
”Forces will be sent there. We don’t know when, but we are planning to do that,” he said.
Iraq’s paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defence Corps urged restraint in Fallujah in a statement handed out to residents late on Wednesday.
But some Fallujah residents were defiant.
”The death of each one of these people is worth 10 Iraqi lives. This is our only deterrence to the occupation of Iraq,” said Nayef, a car salesman.
Meanwhile, efforts continued to rebuild Iraq a year after the US-led war that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, as Iraqi ministers and business leaders met with their German counterparts in Berlin to drum up support for the devastated country’s reconstruction.
”We are trying to convince our German friends that the time has come for them to play a role in the development of Iraq,” interim Agriculture Minister Abdul Amir al-Abood said at a press conference.
The two sides planned ”to discuss very specific construction projects that could result in the signing of contracts”, said the head of the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Martin Wansleben.
Opponents of the Iraq war such as Germany, France, Russia and Canada were initially excluded from bidding for major contracts for the country’s reconstruction by Washington.
The US, which is running the civil administration in Iraq until power is transferred to the Iraqis July 1, has since indicated it would reconsider its hardline stance.
Japan for its part pledged to continue helping Iraq restore its cultural assets, including the national museum, a Japanese official said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi made the promise when she met in Tokyo with Donny George, director general of the National Museum of Iraq, the official said. — Sapa-AFP