Dealing with Haditha

[jcustis]

I too have held off on commenting on this situation, but among the folks here, I feel it is important to add something. I've spoken with two Marines who have provided a considerable amount of insight. One is a close friend of one of the relieved company commanders and has talked with him directly, and the other is an officer who was in the AO at the time and has some hands-on with the situation.

It is an extremely complex one, compounded by things said and done by people pretty far removed from that day's events. We are going to have to wait this one out and see what the final results of the investigation are. From what I am hearing, speculation can't come close to what actually transpired.

BTW, I also think the Honorable Mr. Murtha was out of his lane. Just my $.02.

[SWJED]

28 May Voice of America - US Lawmaker: Killing of Iraqi Civilians a Cover

A prominent U.S. Congressman says the reported killings of innocent Iraqi civilians by American Marines in Haditha last November was covered up.

Speaking on ABC television This Week, John Murtha - a Democrat from Pennsylvania - said the incident could undermine U.S. war efforts in Iraq.

Earlier this month, Murtha said military sources told him a Pentagon probe of the incident in Haditha indicates the Marines barged into homes near where they were responding to a roadside bombing and killed the Iraqis.

The Marine Corps had originally claimed the bomb and an ensuring firefight had killed one Marine and the Iraqis.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican John Warner, said he would hold hearings on the incident, but he said it is important not to reach conclusions until the U.S. military completes its investigation.

[Jedburgh]

Murtha is definitely out of line, and has compounded his inexcusable behavior by continuing to repeat his accusations in public - which are then broadcast and printed around the world. Sen Warner was absolutely correct in his statement regarding withholding conclusions until the investigation is complete.

Unfortunately, given his position, Murtha's statements lend credence to the accusations in the eyes of much of the international audience. At this point, if the accusations as stated are found to be true and the individuals are punished, we will be seen as taking action only in the face of public pressure - but guilty of the crime nonetheless, with any future accusations of committing atrocities given greater legitimacy by this whole affair. And if they are found to be untrue, much of the audience already has their minds made up and they will view it as further evidence of a cover-up.

The bad guys have been reaping the rewards of Abu Ghraib for a while now - this adds exponentially to their ammunition for propaganda and recruitment, with one of our own Congressmen complicit in this outcome. No matter how the investigation eventually turns out, this is an IO disaster of strategic proportions.

[Jedburgh]

CNN, 30 May: A Reporter's Shock at the Haditha Allegations

It actually took me a while to put all the pieces together -- that I know these guys, the U.S. Marines at the heart of the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha.

I don't know why it didn't register with me until now. It was only after scrolling through the tapes that we shot in Haditha last fall, and I found footage of some of the officers that had been relieved of their command, that it hit me.

I know the Marines that were operating in western al Anbar, from Husayba all the way to Haditha. I went on countless operations in 2005 up and down the Euphrates River Valley. I was pinned on rooftops with them in Ubeydi for hours taking incoming fire, and I've seen them not fire a shot back because they did not have positive identification on a target.

I saw their horror when they thought that they finally had identified their target, fired a tank round that went through a wall and into a house filled with civilians. They then rushed to help the wounded -- remarkably no one was killed.

I was with them in Husayba as they went house to house in an area where insurgents would booby-trap doors, or lie in wait behind closed doors with an AK-47, basically on suicide missions, just waiting for the Marines to come through and open fire. There were civilians in the city as well, and the Marines were always keenly aware of that fact. How they didn't fire at shadows, not knowing what was waiting in each house, I don't know. But they didn't.

And I was with them in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians....

[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...

[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.

[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.