NAJAF, IRAQ —— Before dawn Monday, 23-year-old Najaf resident Tahir al Sumbaly dressed in his best sport coat and slacks and took his 45-year-old mother Haifa downtown to seek justice.

As the sun rose behind a rusty haze, they lined up in a trash-filled muddy lot near the Najaf governor's building along with several hundred other Iraqis and waited for the U.S. Marines.

Monday would be a pay day of sorts: the last day the Camp Pendleton-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit was going to pay cash to compensate Iraqis for deaths, injuries or property damage that resulted from weeks of brutal fighting that ravaged this city of 600,000 last summer.

The unit, which has spent nearly seven months in Iraq, fought heavily against militants in the holy city of Najaf last summer before striking a peace agreement. Since the fighting stopped, the 2,000 Marines have worked to rebuild the city and reconcile the damages caused by the violence.

Al Sumbaly said that his two sisters —— 8-year-old Suroor Naji Talip, and 10-year-old Sabah Naji Talip —— were killed when U.S. troops fought against local Shiite militants here in August.

"When we crossed the street to leave the district (the Old City), a group of United States soldiers opened fire for no reason," he said, nervously holding worn identification badges and folded death certificates for his sisters.

"I don't understand why. We all lay down on the earth … then I see the blood on the earth from my sisters. It was terrible. We have sadness all the days now."

Al Sumbaly, like the other Najaf residents who showed up with claims Monday, said he sought cash compensation, not an apology.

"I hope for them to help me," he said, adding that he would also like to apply for a job as a translator for the U.S. military.

"I want justice," he said.

War's bottom line

Marines say the payments, which they call solatia —- an English word meaning payments for damages —— are not apologies or admissions that any damage or death was their fault. The money is simply a way of setting things straight so the city can move on.

Over the last four months, the Marines stationed here have paid out more than $8.5 million on 15,000 claims, ranging from bullet holes in shop walls to multiple deaths in a single family.

After an initial door-to-door program in the wake of the fighting, the Marines have set up in this lot every Monday morning to process the payments, sometimes working from before sunup to well after sundown.

Monday —— the 16th weekly solatia event —— was to be the last day for the mass processing of payments. Commanders said they hope to finish paying out the final $800,000 in the program's funds before they pack up and head back to Camp Pendleton next month.

"If anyone wants their money from last August's fighting, they're going to show up today," said Lt. Col. Ted Ruane, commander of the 300 Marines of the expeditionary force's service and support element.

The turnout was low on Monday, and the number of suspected false claims was high. The Marines only paid out $367,000 on 119 claims for death and injuries and 450 claims for damaged property.

"This was the slowest day we've ever had," said Cpl. Melissa Estrada, 24, of San Fernando, who helped Col. Anthony Haslam process the death claims.

The price of life and limb

The highly subjective business of deciding who gets what seemed cold and grim. Some of the Marines said they had seen so many claims, including gads of fraudulent ones, that they no longer felt much sympathy.

Payments for damage such as bullet holes and fire damage ranged from $100-$2,000. The loss of a cow, a camel, a limb or an eye ranged from a few hundred to a thousand dollars or so. The compensation for a loved one topped out at $2,500.

Estrada said the Marines have paid thousands of civilian death claims since August.

Behind the numbers Monday was a sea of Iraqi faces trying to make it past several layers of inspectors who weeded out shady or incomplete claims. Each of the Iraqis finally arrived at one of the 17 stations where Marines judged their cases.

Before arriving at the mass payment center Monday, Iraqis had to have filed a claim with the local office of human rights, which sends files along to the Marines.

After claimants were patted down for weapons by Iraqi police, their first task was to locate their files.

Many Iraqis stood in line in the lot as they waited to make their case for payments.

A man trying to drag himself along on crutches got help over a small wall by a younger man.

A blind man was guided over the same wall by his young son.

Two young men laughed and smoked as they compared their documents.

And a young Iraqi man sold snacks and cigarettes from a box to Iraqi police who were keeping the crowds in line.

Humanity at the gates

As they waited, Iraqis brought forth their wounded children, lifting shirts, pant legs and bandages to display their terrible scars.

One man brought 12-year-old Yassir Amir, whose eye was blinded and gray after being hit with shrapnel. He said he did not know whether the shrapnel was caused by the American troops or Iraqi militia.

Abid Oaen Doltoun displayed his two-year-old son Mustafa, whose legs were lame and soft as if they had no bones. Doltoun said the boy was ruined by an explosion that came from an American plane, and now he wanted help getting Mustafa to another country for treatment.

Lance Cpl. Josh Chenault said that while he understood that many of the claimants were caught in the crossfire and damaged by the war, he'd seen enough fraudulent claims to make him suspect everyone of lying.

"Some of them just come up here for the hell of it and try to get free money," he said. "But sometimes I come across one (a file) that they want me to read. Shoo ——- real sad, some of them."

Maj. Paul O'Leary, 43, a former Army Special Forces soldier now working with the 33-member reserve civil affairs unit supporting the Marines in Najaf, looked out at the crowd Monday.

"Anyone with even a sliver of a heart has to be overwhelmed by all this," he said.

He said that while many of the troops get frustrated and jaded by frequent false claims, he tries to remind them of the humanity in it all.

"I tell the soldiers, 'Don't hold it against them.'" he said. "'Put yourself in their shoes. They're desperate.'

"I would hope that there are not legitimate claims that are lost," he said, pointing to where a man with a leather jacket that read "Rich Man" on the back was being escorted by a Marine down the rejection lane out of the lot to the street. "But in reality, I know it happens."

All claims final

At the table where all death claims are personally decided by Haslam, Iraqi interpreter Kasim al Asadi caught a man trying to pass what he believed were forged documents.

"We've been working four months on this," al Asadi said. "We know how to spot the fake death certificates."

Marines said that almost as soon as they started making solatia payments in Najaf, a black market in fake documents sprouted, providing potential claimants everything from false identification to death certificates to good stories sure to get them straight to the cashier.

Kadim Farhan Kareem said two of his daughters had been killed by shrapnel from shells fired from the gunship that supported the Marines from the air in August.

It was a common story Monday. In fact many of the adults who stood in line with maimed children pointed to the sky when asked what happened. Bombs from the airplane, they said.

While Kareem pleaded with the Marines for compensation, a woman cloaked in black wheeled an old man up to the table in a squeaky wheelchair.

He, too, said his daughter was killed in battle in the Judeda neighborhood on Aug. 18.

Haslam declared the first man's claim legitimate. The second man was sent away in his wheelchair with a voucher to claim $100 dollars at the cashier.

The process was highly subjective ——- and final.

First Lt. Rebecca Gould said that decisions on property damage were much the same, but there were often more clues to go on.

"I've been doing this for awhile," said the 25-year-old Marine. "A lot of it is just reading the individual."

She cited the case of a woman who said she bought all her shop supplies in Baghdad, yet all her receipts were from Najaf.

Apart from the weeds that get pulled, Gould said, "I think, for the most part, people leave here happy."

Army Staff Sgt. Randy Heffner, who has been working with the Marines on the solatia payouts since November, said the effort has been one of the most rewarding parts of his tour in Iraq.

"I don't know if these payments help create stability here," he said. "But something is working.

"There is such a well of need here," he said. "I think everyone here gave 100 percent to try to fill it."

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at dmortenson@nctimes.com.