Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 109: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he has raised concerns with the US authorities regarding practices at US military checkpoints in occupied Iraq that have repeatedly resulted in deaths of innocent civilians. [2303/05]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The United States authorities are very well aware of the Government's view, which we have expressed many times, that all military operations where civilians are at risk should be planned and conducted so as to keep the use of force to a minimum and make every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties. This would include the manning of checkpoints by military forces. The Government's position has been expressed in public statements, in answers to parliamentary questions and directly to the US authorities.

In asking the military to exercise all possible caution, it is only right that we also recognise the pressure placed upon individual soldiers by repeated suicide attacks upon international and Iraqi forces manning such checkpoints. All parties in Iraq should refrain from actions which increase the risks of civilians becoming casualties.