U.S. probe of Iraq shooting incomplete: media group

By Chris Reiter

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. military cleared its soldiers in Iraq over the deaths of two journalists in 2004 without considering contradictory witness accounts, a media rights group said on Thursday.

U.S. soldiers shot and killed two Al-Arabiya broadcast journalists during a firefight at a checkpoint on March 18, 2004.

The military concluded the journalists from the network based in the United Arab Emirates were caught in cross-fire and that the troops properly followed rules of engagement.

But the Committee to Protect Journalists said, according to a report of the incident recently made public, the military did not account for statements from surviving Al-Arabiya employees that U.S. soldiers fired directly at the journalists' vehicle and that a U.S. tank briefly collided with it.

Al-Arabiya journalists also said the checkpoint where the shooting took place was not well lit, contrary to military assertions, the CPJ said.

"The report's failure to fully reconcile the varying witness accounts is troubling and leaves open the possibility that potentially damaging information was ignored or not fully considered," Joel Simon, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

U.S. forces have killed 14 journalists and two media support workers in Iraq since the beginning of the war in March 2003, the CPJ said.

The U.S. military's Central Command, responsible for operations in the Middle East, had no immediate comment on the report.