Not hard to see why they want immunity

Wikileaks' release of a 2006 State Department memo regarding a letter from Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to the US mission in Geneva has spurred new investigations:

As part of the negotiations over keeping US troops in Iraq, Washington is demanding immunity for all US military personnel. But Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Moussawi, said: "We will not give up the rights of the Iraqi people, and this subject will be followed."

The leaked state department memo, dated 27 March, 12 days after the incident, says that the US mission in Geneva had received a letter from Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. In his letter, Alston said he had received various reports on the killings, and the dead included Faiz Hratt Khalaf, 28, his wife, three children, his mother, sister, two nieces, a three-year-old and a visiting relative.

"According to the information received, American troops approached Mr Faiz's home in the early hours of 15 March 2006. It would appear that when the MNF [multinational forces] approached the house, shots were fired from it and a confrontation ensued for some 25 minutes. The MNF troops entered the house, handcuffed all residents and executed all of them. After the initial MNF intervention, a US air raid ensued that destroyed the house," Alston wrote. He added: "Iraqi TV stations broadcast from the scene and showed bodies of the victims (ie five children and four women) in the morgue of Tikrit. Autopsies carried out at the Tikrit hospital's morgue revealed that all corpses were shot in the head and handcuffed."