Throats not slit

Initial reports that two soldiers killed in Mosul had had their throats slit and bodies mutilated appear (thankfully) to be incorrect.

Confusion swirled Monday as a United States military official retracted his earlier report that the throats of two American soldiers had been slashed during an attack on Sunday in the northern city of Mosul.

The official, who said he was receiving his information from written military records, said the two soldiers had died of gunshot wounds to the head, and that their bodies had been pulled from their car by Iraqis and robbed of their personal belongings. He said that, contrary to initial accounts on Sunday from Mosul, the bodies of the men had not been mutilated or pummeled with rocks.

The initial reports were seized upon by cable news channels and tabloid newspapers as a virtual replay of the 1993 attack in which the bodies of American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia. That attack, depicted in the popular movie "Black Hawk Down," was seen as one of the principal reasons the United States quit its military operation intended to bring order to the Somali capital.

The New York Times reported in its Monday editions that the throats of the two soldiers had been slashed, quoting the same military official.

In his revised account, the military official said the victims, both of the 101st Airborne Division, were not set upon by a mob but were shot by unidentified gunmen who stopped their car in front of the Americans' car, forcing it to halt. The assailants got out and fired at the Americans through the windshield.

Of course, their deaths are no less lamentable for being shot instead of mutilated, but the original description of the attack was particularly disturbing.

There's one other part of this story that bothers me:

Despite Monday's statements, important questions remained about the incident. One was why the men were traveling through the streets of Mosul alone. Military rules in Mosul and other parts of Iraq prohibit troops from traveling outside their bases except in a convoy. The Americans who were killed were traveling in an unarmored sport utility vehicle without an escort.

I'm sure a lot of time is going to be spent trying to figure out why these soldiers were violating orders. As this event makes evident, those orders were in place for a good reason.