Briefing: Zarqawi was in US custody when he died
RAW STORY
Published: Friday June 9, 2006
Transcript of General Caldwell's Baghdad briefing on the death of Zarqawi:
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QUESTION: General Caldwell, Barbara Starr from CNN.
Also, can you give us the definitive word now -- do you have any information that Zarqawi initially survived the air strike, that he was alive at any point in the hands of either Iraqi or U.S. forces? And can you tell us if one of the women was identified as one of Zarqawi's wives or someone related to him?
GENERAL CALDWELL: Barbara, what I can tell you is that, again, from the debriefs this morning, which gave us greater clarity than what we had before, is Zarqawi in fact did survive the airstrike. The report specifically states that nobody else did survive, though, from what they know.
The first people on the scene were the Iraqi police. They had found him and put him into some kind of gurney stretcher kind of thing, and then American -- coalition forces arrived immediately thereafter on site. They immediately went to the person in the stretcher, were able to start to identify him by some distinguishing marks on his body. They had some kind of visual facial recognition.
According to the person on the ground, Zarqawi attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher. They -- everybody resecured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he had received from the airstrike. As far as anybody else, again, the report says nobody else survived.
QUESTION: To clarify, then, you can confirm that U.S. troops themselves saw and can confirm to you that Zarqawi was alive. That is confirmed by U.S. troops on the ground. And his attempt to turn away, would you describe that as an attempt, even in the state he was in, to escape at that point? Why did you have -- was he strong enough for anyone to have to resecure him?
GENERAL CALDWELL: Again, I'm reading the report. I did not talk specifically to any uniformed person, but according to the report, we did, in fact, see him alive. There was some kind of movement he had on the stretcher, and he died shortly thereafter. But yes, it was confirmed by other than the Iraqi police that he was alive initially.
QUESTION: Sorry; did anyone render medical assistance to him? Did U.S. troops try and render medical assistance?
GENERAL CALDWELL: Again, Barbara, as I was reading the report, they went into the process to provide medical care to him.
MR. WHITMAN: Will?
QUESTION: General, this is Will Dunham with Reuters. How long, how many minutes, was Zarqawi alive after the bombing and before he eventually expired? And had he been shot?
GENERAL CALDWELL: Well, when I was there today, it became apparent that this kind of question would be asked. We're trying to put that exact minutes together from the time that we saw the Iraqi police arrive on site to when the first coalition forces arrived on site, and when they were able to report that they thought he had died there. And we'll provide that -- we can put that together, we just don't have it at the moment.
QUESTION: Sir, had he been shot?
GENERAL CALDWELL: There is nothing that I saw in the report. But I'll got back and specifically ask that. But no, there was nothing in the report that said he had received any wounds from some kind of weapon system like that.
QUESTION: Bryan, Jim Miklaszewski with NBC -- or General -- I'm sorry. Will there be an autopsy performed, number one. And number two, was Zarqawi able to speak? Did he say anything either to the Iraqi police or the American soldiers?
GENERAL CALDWELL: If he said something to the Iraqi police, I'm not aware of it. According to the reports by the coalition forces that arrived on site, he mumbled a little something, but it was indistinguishable and it was very short.
QUESTION: An autopsy, will an autopsy be performed?
GENERAL CALDWELL: They in fact have done some analysis of his body. I'll have to get -- make sure I have the proper definition of what was done with Zarqawi's body, but I know they have done some kind of analysis, and I'll get that for you.
MR. WHITMAN: Jeff, go ahead.
QUESTION: General, Jeff Schogol with Stars and Stripes. Two quick questions. How can you be sure that he died -- that Zarqawi died as a result of the wounds he received from the explosion without a formal autopsy? And secondly, when you were cleaning him up, did you have to Photoshop his face or anything to make him more recognizable for the picture?
GENERAL CALDWELL: To take the second question first, yes, Jeff, his face was very, very bloodied. And we made a conscious decision that if we were going to take photographs of him and make them available publicly, like we did in the press conference, that we were going to clean him up. Despite the fact that this person actually had no regard for human life, we were not going to treat him in the same manner, and so they did clean his face up for the shots that were shown publicly.
As far as the autopsy goes, there was -- I know -- quote -- was an "autopsy" done, but I'm going to go back to make sure that it was performed by whatever the certified kind of person that we're supposed to have so we can call it an autopsy, and make sure I'm exactly correct before I tell you that.
QUESTION: Follow-up. Did you have to digitally enhance the photos at all to clean them up to show them to the world?
GENERAL CALDWELL: No. The photographs there are the straight photographs. We did no digital enhancement from this end.
QUESTION: General, this is Pam Hess with UPI. What's going to happen to Zarqawi's body after the autopsy? Does it get returned to Jordan to his family? And do you have anything on the identity of the others killed din the strike? Was it six victims total, including Zarqawi, or was it seven?
GENERAL CALDWELL: Right now we are in consultation with the government of IraQUESTION: as far as the disposition of Zarqawi's body. I know the dialogue has been going on since after the -- shortly after the strike and he was brought under coalition forces control. So that's still being deliberated. They may have made a decision late here this afternoon. They had not as of noon today.
As far as the identification of the other personnel goes, I know they're still working it. The only two that have been positively identified at this point, of course, is Zarqawi and Al Rahman. And again, those we were able to do through fingerprint identification. DNA results have still not come back as of noon today, and we're waiting for those results, though, too. The other four, they are trying to attempt to identify, but as of noon today, again, we had not.
QUESTION: There was a report yesterday that a child was killed in that. Are you saying that that's not the case right now?
GENERAL CALDWELL: I'm saying I'm not certain at the moment, because the initial report that I was provided in fact said there was a child, and then when I went through the after-action review today -- again, as with any military operations, you get the first reports in, they're fairly accurate but they're never complete. Them you do follow-on work to establish exactly what the factual facts are. And the report today says it was six people -- three males and three females, no children.
MR. WHITMAN: Jonathan.
QUESTION: General, Jonathan Karl with ABC News. You mentioned yesterday that there were 17 raids conducted simultaneously in and around Baghdad after Zarqawi was confirmed dead. Can you give us any more information on this treasure trove of documents and information you got? And how many people were detained as a result of those raids?
GENERAL CALDWELL: We obviously did conduct those 17 raids. And then last night we conducted an additional 39 operations across Iraq, some directly related to the information we had received, others have not direct relationship.
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