Dulce Et Decorum Est

Here is video of a tank rolling up beside a group of Iraqi men sitting on the ground.

There was still some looting going on when we arrived.

And when we came across soldiers, they didn’t seem sure of their role.

The American soldiers are milling about and eventually move over to talk to the Iraqi men. One of them points to a young boy sitting with the men, and says, in English:

That child don’t need to be here. You know where the school is? O.K., that what he need to be doing, not following you.

Here are the faces of several soldiers, waiting for something to happen.

We filmed these G.I.s after they caught a group of Iraqis stealing wood.

One young soldier says,

We trying to stop them from looting, and they don’t understand, so we’ll take that car and we’ll crush it, the United States Army tankers.

Two soldiers draw their handguns and open fire on the empty car, shooting out the windows and the tires. When they finish, the tank rolls up to the front of the car and then over it, smashing the car under its treads. After it finishes, a soldier waves for it to come back, and the tank completely destroys the car as it crushes it in reverse. The horn honks briefly and a broken shell is left behind. The soldiers wave at each other and laugh. The same soldier who explained that they were going to smash the car says,

That’s what you get when you loot.

The narrator returns to say,

Later, the car’s owner told us, I’m a taxi driver. The car was my livelihood.