How many stories have we heard about airstrikes in Iraq going bad? How many times have there been different accounts between what Iraq says and our military says? Here is the latest:

American troops backed by aircraft attacked a Shiite town north of Baghdad at dawn on Friday, killing at least 25 Iraqis the military described as criminals who were involved in the transport of weapons. But Iraqis at the scene said the dead were civilians, though some were armed.

The military said it was searching for an insurgent leader believed to be associated with the elite Iranian Quds Force, which American intelligence sources believe is working in Iraq to foment violent activity by some Shiite militias. A military spokesman said the insurgent leader was not captured in the raid.

Iraqis at the scene gave an account that diverged sharply from that of the military.

They said that the Iraqis who were killed were trying to defend their town from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni militant group that American intelligence believes has foreign leadership. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been active in Diyala Province, where the town is located, but so have militias associated with the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

We really want to believe that our military was right in this. I am sure the Iraqi’s want to believe it also; after all things like this create more problems. Sadly that never seems to be the case. The militaries instant reaction to these is denial. They get that our right away, then maybe a month later they say “well yeah we did mess up”. By that time the feelings have enraged in the victims involved. So how many of these victims will decide to join the insurgency or al Qaeda?

I hope the military is right in their description, but if they aren’t then there will be backlash. They also need to either tell the truth or just say “we don’t know – it’s being investigated”. Stop playing with the minds of people, then you might start winning them over.