What massacre?

US troops defend raid, say Iraqis faked "massacre" - Yahoo! News:
'After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different from what it was. There's been huge misinformation,' Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said.
...
Government-run television has shown footage of bodies lying without weapons in what Shi'ite ministers say is a mosque compound run by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The security minister accused Iraqi and U.S. troops of killing 37 unarmed men.

Giving the first U.S. military briefing on Sunday's events in Baghdad, Chiarelli said the raid by about 50 Iraqi special forces troops backed by some 25 U.S. 'advisers' had been the fruit of long intelligence work. But he said he did not know the religious affiliation of 16 'insurgents' who were killed.

An Iraqi was freed who had been taken hostage that day and threatened with death if he did not pay a $20,000 ransom, he said. Three fighters were wounded and 18 other people detained.

Chiarelli insisted the compound was not a mosque but an office complex. Neighbors and aides to Sadr call it a mosque and say it was once offices for Saddam Hussein's Baath party.

'There was gunfire from every room,' he said.

Major General J.D. Thurman, whose division controls Baghdad, said: 'If it was a mosque, why are they using it as a place to hold hostages?' He added that weapons, including 34 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were also found.""

It's a rescue! People die in rescues! If you don't want to get shot by us, then don't sit around in a weaponized mosque. And espessially don't sit in there with a gun, ready to blow our soldiers to oblivion, because you won't surive the day.