Thanks heric. That Time article is worth reading.

It's worth noting that it appears that, until Time started investigating and pushing for answers months later, the US military were quite happy to present as fact a completely fictitious version of the killings. That in itself casts doubt on their later explanations that present the killings as something other than a latter day My Lai.

It opens up the question whether in other cases which have been reported as civilians killed by bombers what in fact happened may have been something comparable to this.

In interviews with Iraqi veterans who were on that march to New Orleans which were broadcast by the BBC this week there were several references to random shootings of anyone in the vicinity of a bombing on the road as fairly common practice. (US vets on TV)