Militants or civilians? Iraqis, US dispute deadly Ishaqi raid

BAGHDAD, Saturday (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. officials disputed each others' accounts of an overnight raid and air strike on Friday that killed up to 20 people in a new sign of friction over allegations of American troops killing civilians.

The U.S. military said ground forces with air support killed 20 suspected al Qaeda militants, including two women, in an area where the Sunni Arab insurgency is strong.

Police and officials in Ishaqi, 90 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, said the bodies of 17 civilians, including six women and five children, were found in the rubble of two homes.

“The Americans have done this before but they always deny it,” Ishaqi Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters by telephone. “I want the world to know what's happening here.”

Complaints that unjustified killings by U.S. troops are common have soured Iraqis' sentiment toward the U.S. presence in Iraq and prompted Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki earlier this year to say he was losing patience over such reports.

This week an elite panel in Washington, exploring alternatives for U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq strategy, recommended the primary mission of U.S. forces evolve to one of training to let Iraqi forces take over combat responsibility.

Former Secretary of State James Baker, co-chair of the panel, urged Congress and the White House to accept most of the report's recommendations.

“I hope we don't treat this as a fruit salad, and say, 'I like this but I don't like that',” Baker said on Thursday. But the White House on Friday dismissed his appeal.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the Iraq report would be considered along with internal reviews being conducted by the Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council.

Terje Roed-Larsen, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy on Syria-Lebanon issues, said the report was flawed as it assumes there is a common interest among states in the Middle East to stop a slide into chaos in Iraq.

Bush, who has meetings next week with Pentagon and State Department officials, is due to outline his new Iraq policy before Christmas, but has already rejected direct talks with Iran and Syria, a central recommendation of the panel.

More than 2,900 U.S. troops have died and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein

Iraqiya state television on Friday said Iraq would hold a national reconciliation conference on Dec. 16. It gave no details and it was not clear if Sunni Arab militant groups who oppose the political process would take part.

In Ishaqi, grieving relatives showed the bodies of five children wrapped in blankets to journalists.

In a statement, the U.S. military said the operation in Salahaddin province followed intelligence reports that al Qaeda militants operated in the area. It said rocket-propelled grenades and explosive suicide vests were found.

Only a handful of complaints involving civilian deaths in Iraq have led to criminal investigations by the U.S. military.

“I can promise you that, in every one of these incidents, they will be fully investigated,” Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. general in the country, told Pentagon journalists by video-link.