BAGHDAD — The American military admitted Sunday night that a platoon of soldiers raked a car of innocent Iraqi civilians with hundreds of rounds of gunfire and that the military then issued a news release larded with misstatements, asserting that the victims were criminals who had fired on the troops.

The attack on June 25 killed three people, a man and two women, as they drove to work at a bank at Baghdad’s airport. The attack infuriated Iraqi officials and even prompted the Iraqi armed forces general command to call the shooting cold-blooded murder.

It also bolstered calls from Iraqi politicians to pressure the American military to leave Iraq [1] after this year, when a United Nations [2] mandate expires, unless the United States agrees to permit its soldiers to be subject to criminal prosecution under Iraqi law for attacks on civilians.