Dealing with Haditha

[Xenophon]

I was in the field all last week so I spent the Memorial Day break catching up with the events. First I heard about it was news on the Commandant's trip to Iraq.

Thus far I've been mostly angry at the media for their lynching of the Marines without the least bit of evidence and Sen. Murtha's blatant whoring out of the Corps for personal political gain. The title of this thread is very appropriate as I feel the need to find solace over this thing, and came here to talk about it. I've been down though since seeing this article on CNN with alleged information from the Pentagon: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...tml?eref=yahoo
Although the blog article posted by SWJED gives me some hope.

Also I completely agree with your post, Jedburgh. I've been one of the Iraq War faithful for the entirety of the conflict and I'm afraid for the first time that we may have lost it beyond repair. It's troubling for any soldier or Marine to think that all the training and effort we put into warfighting can be for naught because of an enemy victory in an arena that we can't fight in (meaning the media/PR aspect).

If I can self-promote for a second, I wrote about it on my blog as well: http://xenophonblog.blogspot.com

[Jugurtha]

This was posted today from NPR.org.

http://http://www.npr.org/templates/...toryId=5440486

U.S. Paid $2,500 for Each Death in Haditha

by Tom Bowman*
*

Manuel Balce Ceneta
File photograph shows Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. AP
*
*
All Things Considered, May 30, 2006 · The U.S. Marines paid at least $38,000 to the families of Iraqi civilians killed in a November clash in Haditha. The payments were made in December, according to a report in The Denver Post that was confirmed by NPR.
In another development in the case, investigators have been told that a sergeant coaxed other Marines to come up with a cover story about the incident. The squad leader allegedly sought to prove his group was not at fault for the deaths. Of particular concern to the sergeant, investigators say, was the deaths of five Iraqis in a taxi. They were unarmed and killed by Marines shortly after the roadside bomb went off, investigators have found.
It is standard procedure for the military to make payments when it is at fault. The payments, which included $2,500 for each person killed, were authorized by the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Chessani, and his superiors. But it's uncertain how far up the chain of command the approval had to go.

[SWJED]

31 May Washington Times editorial Not Again, Congressman.

Rep. John Murtha continues to make irresponsible accusations about an incident involving a Marine company in Haditha, Iraq, last year in which as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians were killed. Moving recklessly onward from his recent comments about how the Marines murdered the Iraqis in "cold blood," the Pennsylvania Democrat now alleges conspiracy. "Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Mr. Murtha asked Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

These are the wrong questions. Reasonable Americans without a partisan fixation on the Bush administration would probably ask: Why can't John Murtha wait until the Pentagon completes its two-part investigation into the Nov. 19 incident he condemns the Marines and floats conspiracy theories? Are his sources inside the Pentagon so solid that he can allege that the cover-up "goes right up the chain of command," as he did on Sunday? How could these sources speak authoritatively about an investigation that isn't completed? We await Mr. Murtha's answers...

[SSG Rock]

I am stunned right down to my toes at the demeanor of Mr. Murtha! A Marine, a retired officer, has already tried and convicted these Marines for political gain in the court of public opinion and is obviously embarked on a campaign to push responsibility for the alleged crime (s) and alleged cover up as far up the chain of command that he can. To be quite frank, it makes me feel like knocking out his teeth! Mr. Murtha, should be protecting the constitutional rights of his brother Marines, of course that does not prevent him from discussing the incident with the caveat that nobody has been charged with anything yet. And yet, there he was, on national TV, almost screaming that the Marines are murderers and there was a cover up! It was a disgusting display of a total lack of loyalty to the institution he gave the best years of his life serving. I'm at a loss, did his espirit de corps really run so shallow all those years he served? Mr. Murtha should simply keep his big pie hole shut untill the investigation reaches a conclusion. If this allegation is substantiated, I have complete faith that the corps will ensure justice is done. Still, I can't help but feel sympathy for the Marines in question some perhaps, on their second deployment or more. The frustration of seeing their squad leader blown to pieces. According to a lance corporal in the same unit, the Marines went "blind with hate" and went on a killing spree. I don't know if the lance corporal was on the scene or was simply in the same unit. It doesn't look good for these poor grunts, but that does not change the fact, that one of their brothers, a former leader has thrown them under the bus before all the facts are in and I'm absolutely sick about it. I'm sick with sadness about the whole mess.

[Jugurtha]

From National Review by Mackubin Thomas Owens

In the quest for its own My Lai, the anti-Iraq war faction in this country has had to settle for Abu Ghraib, by far the most hyped stories of the war. But now, allegations of multiple murders in the town of Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in al Anbar Province, may provide them with the incident they need. According to published reports, a number of Marines from the storied 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division are accused killing more than 20 Iraqi civilians in retaliation for the death of one of their comrades by a roadside bomb in November, 2005.

The Marine Corps originally claimed that the Iraqis were killed by an insurgent bomb or during a firefight. But in response to allegations by Time magazine, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began an investigation of the Haditha incident. A separate administrative investigation by Army Maj. Gen. A. Eldon Bargewell should be delivered soon to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the operational commander of the multi-national force in Iraq, to determine whether there was an attempt to cover up the incident.

It is important to note that the investigation is still incomplete but that hasn’t stopped opponents of the war from using the incident in Haditha to advance their agenda. Last Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, (D., Pa.), a vociferous critic of the war, broke the story, claiming that Marines in Haditha had “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” This incident, said Murtha, “shows the tremendous pressure that these guys are under every day when they’re out in combat.” Appearing Sunday on This Week on ABC, Murtha went farther, claiming that the shootings in Haditha had been covered up. “Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long? We don’t know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command.”

Murtha’s attempt to use the Haditha incident for his own political purposes should be obvious to everyone. But if his description of the event—a cold-blooded killing of innocent civilians—is true, then those Marines committed a bona fide war crime. What, if anything, can be said in mitigation?

WESTERN PRECAUTIONS
Atrocities and war crimes are acts of violence in wartime the brutality and cruelty of which exceed military necessity. They include, but are not limited to, looting, torture, rape, massacre, mutilation of the enemy dead, and the killing of captured soldiers or noncombatants.

The West has placed three constraints on its conduct warfare: proportion, discrimination, and the positive law of war. Proportion means that particular actions must be proportionate to legitimate military necessity and not involve needless suffering or destruction. Discrimination means that direct intentional attacks on noncombatants and non-military targets are prohibited. The incident at Haditha appears to be an example of this last category...

[SWJED]

1 June Washington Post - Probe Into Iraq Deaths Finds False Reports by Tom Ricks.

The U.S. military investigation of how Marine commanders handled the reporting of events last November in the Iraqi town of Haditha, where troops allegedly killed 24 Iraqi civilians, will conclude that some officers gave false information to their superiors, who then failed to adequately scrutinize reports that should have caught their attention, an Army official said yesterday.

The three-month probe, led by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, is also expected to call for changes in how U.S. troops are trained for duty in Iraq, the official said...

The Bargewell investigation is likely to be explosive on Capitol Hill, because it focuses on questions that have haunted the Bush administration and the U.S. military since the scandal over abuse at Abu Ghraib prison emerged two years ago: How do U.S. military leaders in Iraq react to allegations of wrongdoing by their troops? And is the military prepared to carry out the long and arduous process of putting down an insurgency as part of the first U.S. occupation of an Arab nation?

One of Bargewell's conclusions is that the training of troops for Iraq has been flawed, the official said, with too much emphasis on traditional war-fighting skills and insufficient focus on how to wage a counterinsurgency campaign...

[SWJED]

Men at War

...Well, that was then, this is now. The war in Iraq demonstrates that those who believed that information technology would transform the nature of war were deluding themselves. War is shaped by human nature, the complexities of human behavior, and the limitations of human mental and physical capabilities. Any view of war that ignores what the Prussian “philosopher of war” Carl von Clausewitz called the “moral factors,” e.g. fear, the impact of danger, and physical exhaustion, is fraught with peril: “Military activity is never directed against material forces alone; it is always aimed simultaneously at the moral forces which give it life, and the two cannot be separated.”

In Iraq, our opponents have chosen to deny us the ability to fight the sort of conventional war we would prefer and forced us to fight the one they want—an insurgency. Insurgents blend with the people making it hard to distinguish between combatant and noncombatant. A counterinsurgency always has to negotiate a fine line between too much and too little force. Indeed, it suits the insurgents’ goal when too much force is applied indiscriminately...

[SWJED]

Death in Haditha - Washington Post.

U.S. Marines gunned down five unarmed Iraqis who stumbled onto the scene of a 2005 roadside bombing in Haditha, Iraq, according to eyewitness accounts that are part of a lengthy investigative report obtained by The Washington Post. Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the squad's leader, shot the men one by one after Marines ordered them out of a white taxi in the moments following the explosion, which killed one Marine and injured two others, witnesses told investigators. Another Marine fired rounds into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

U.S. Investigation Reveals New Details of Civilian Deaths in Haditha - VOA.

A published report on the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha in 2005 says witnesses saw the troops pull five unarmed Iraqis from a passing taxi and shoot them dead at point-blank range. The report obtained by The Washington Post newspaper reveals previously undisclosed details about the incident in Haditha. That incident occurred shortly after a roadside bomb killed one Marine and wounded two others.

Marines' Photos Provide Graphic Evidence in Haditha Probe - Washington Post.

Capturing images of war on their digital cameras, as many troops in Iraq have done, Marines took dozens of gruesome photographs of the 24 civilians who were killed in Haditha, Iraq, in November 2005. The images -- which investigators tracked down on several laptop computers and digital media drives, some in the United States -- provide visual evidence of a series of shootings outside a taxi and inside three homes that military criminal investigators have alleged were murders.

U.S. Inquiry Backs Charges of Killing by Marines in Iraq - NY Times.

An American government report on the killing of 24 Iraqis, including several women and children, by marines in the village of Haditha in 2005 provides new details of how the shootings unfolded and supports allegations by prosecutors that a few marines illegally killed civilians, government officials said yesterday. The report, by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, contains thousands of pages of interviews with marines, Iraqi Army soldiers who had accompanied them and Iraqi villagers who had seen the attack. The shootings followed a roadside bombing that killed a young lance corporal and wounded two other marines, said a senior Defense Department official and another official who had read the report.

[tequila]

William Langewiesche writing in Vanity Fair on Haditha. Don't necessarily agree with everything he concludes, but it's a well-written article with lots of additional details.

[goesh]

As a US tax payer, a civilian and as a human being, I really don't care if in fact the Marines in question blew away some civilians. I could care less if they did and I could care less what anyone thinks of me over it. It seems apparent to me that the ROE are causing US deaths. Our troops are being killed for the sake of PR -that's the bottom line and subsequently intelligent people are wringing their hands over why Iraq is becoming a quagmire. The ROE serve no purpose except to increase the visceral loathing jihadis have for us and our way of life. Our enemy has no reason to fear us, none what so ever and their assets, the civilian population, has no reason to respect us or to regard us as liberators in any way. Why would they? We invade and don't even attempt to stop looters. We won't go all out to kill our enemies and in fact appear afraid of them. What else would civilians believe for cryin' out loud? We pick up our fallen enemies and give them state of the art medical care. What would you think if you had a sick kid and couldn't get any real help for the kid, then along comes the all powerful Americans, they wound one of the men trying to kill them then they turn around and take care of that person all the while your kid remains sick and in need of treatment. And they're supposed to regard us as saviors and great, wonderful people? DUHH! Would you trust such people? I sure the heck wouldn't. Would you tip them off to a potential ambush when they won't even shoot back half the time and try to stay alive? Love your enemy, enable them to live and oppress the people you're supposed to be saving. We used to call that a cluster fu** but I guess the rules of interpretation (ROI) have changed, huh? There is only one way to play Taps regardless of what lifers and politicians say.

[jcustis]

It seems apparent to me that the ROE are causing US deaths. Our troops are being killed for the sake of PR -that's the bottom line and subsequently intelligent people are wringing their hands over why Iraq is becoming a quagmire. The ROE serve no purpose except to increase the visceral loathing jihadis have for us and our way of life.

I think you will find that the great majority of members here hold a completely different view, and that your observations on the rules of engagement are in fact incorrect.

Are you speaking from the experience of having actually served under the CENTCOM Standing ROE, in Iraq?

[JKM4767]

JC is right. I have never felt the ROE hindered any operation or mission. If you are shot at, shoot back, just hit what you aim at. During two tours, I have never seen a chain of command question the decision of a leader during any type of engagement. Never.
Also, ground troops are pretty much given the OK to fire in many non-standard cases, i.e., someone is laying in an IED. More often than not, units sometimes use too much force that wasn't necessary.

[taillat]

As a french, i have little information about this event, except what i read on this forum. I recommand you this article:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200611...-we-fight.html
This reminds me a (quite) similar case for French Army in Ivory Coast on may 2005: one rebel was arrested by a mountain's troop platoon in the demilitarized zone held by Force Licorne. The rebel, having been convinced for rape, murder and racket, was injured by our soldiers. He died during the travel to hospital. Six months later, unofficial voices (jealous officers maybe) said to the press that the Ivorian was murdered (suffocation in a plastic bag) by the platoon sergeant. But the case was occulted by general Poncet, commander of Force Licorne (a former special force leader). This triggered a violent press campaign against French Army in Ivory Coast, by both ivorian and french journalists. Poncet was convinced for his silence, as were the platoon leader, the platoon sergent, and the regiment leader. In my regiment, there was no doubt the rebel would have been released and, even if we condemned the murder, we could understand why it happened. Furthermore, many of us thought our soldiers weren't sufficiently backed by political leaders and intellectual elites. This was difficult in my regiment because it suffered 8 casualties on november 2004 following a bombing by Pdt Gbagbo's ukranian-piloted su-25.
I will pray for your fellow Marines that face trial. Your soldiers, nothwithstanding their defaults (and everyone has one), fight for each other, like any soldier in any war.
Best
Sous-Lieutenant (2/Lt) (reserve) Stéphane TAILLAT
PS: many apologizes for my syntax and grammar.

[SWCAdmin]

PS: many apologizes for my syntax and grammar.

Your English is much better than my French. No problemo (I think that's either Spanish or Austrian).

In my regiment, there was no doubt the rebel would have been released and, even if we condemned the murder, we could understand why it happened.
<snip>
I will pray for your fellow Marines that face trial. Your soldiers, nothwithstanding their defaults (and everyone has one), fight for each other, like any soldier in any war.

We certainly must not view war through the lens of armchair civilian peacetime law. Horrible things happen. But they happen more and more if we tolerate those that are on the fringe, understandable or not. Your example of vigiliante-ism is closer to the fringe, but most versions of the Haditha story are well down the slippery slope. (I do not pretend to know the truth of what happened). Not that either is OK, but I see a large difference between the two.