Video given as evidence of claims of U.S. shootings

In Cleveland on Monday, Bush explained his optimism about the war.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Residents gave new details Monday about the shootings of civilians in a western Iraqi town, where the U.S. military is investigating allegations of potential misconduct by American troops last November.
The residents said troops entered homes and shot and killed 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.
The military, which announced Friday that a dozen Marines are under investigation for possible war crimes in the Nov. 19 occurrence, said in a statement Monday that a videotape of the aftermath of the shootings in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, was presented in support of the allegations.
The charges against the Marines were first brought forward by Time magazine, which reported this week that it obtained a videotape two months ago taken by a Haditha journalism student that shows the dead still in their nightclothes.
The magazine report mirrored what was told independently to The Associated Press by residents who described what happened as "a massacre." However, Time said the available evidence did not prove conclusively that the Marines deliberately killed innocents.
A military spokeswoman said Monday the allegations were being taken "very seriously."
Bush defense of war
Meanwhile, President Bush entered the fourth year of war in Iraq on Monday with a dramatically detailed and graphic accounting of violence there, and allowed that many Americans have trouble accepting the successes he claims in a conflict that promises more "sacrifice and tough fighting."
Bush fielded a long series of often-critical questions from an audience in Cleveland.
"I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken," Bush said during his speech in the political battleground of Ohio, where he also had traveled to make his case for war before the U.S.-led invasion. People "look at the violence they see each night on their television screens, and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic. ... They wonder what I see that they don't."
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the "policies of the Bush administration and the civilian leadership of our military have made America less safe and left Iraq on the precipice of all-out civil war."
More killings
In new violence, at least 39 people were killed by insurgents and shadowy sectarian gangs, police reported Monday -- continuing the wave of violence that has left nearly 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite Muslim shrine.
Police found the bodies of at least 15 more people -- including that of a 13-year-old girl -- dumped in and near Baghdad.
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