U.S. won't claim responsibility for reckless killing

That report of soldiers blasting a couple of Iraqi police and some civilians in response to a roadside bomb explosion is being denied by the military. I guess having to admit to dropping a 500-pound bomb on the wrong house the day before was all the crow they were willing to eat.

A U.S. spokesman denied on Monday that American soldiers killed five civilians in a hail of gunfire after a roadside bomb exploded near American troops, and an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman who initially issued the report backed away from the claim.

The U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. James Hutton, said the weekend bombing apparently targeted American soldiers but instead killed a civilian and two men wearing Iraqi police uniforms. He said coalition troops then came under small-arms fire that killed two Iraqi civilians.

Hutton said three civilians also were wounded, "most likely from insurgents," and a third man wearing a police uniform was wounded. There were no U.S. casualties, he said.

How lucky.

Hutton said it was believed the three men in police uniforms were not actually Iraqi police. Afterward, four police officers responsible for the area arrived at the scene and were detained on suspicion they might have been involved in the attack, he said.

A fiasco, no matter how you slice it.