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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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September 27th, 2006 - Haditha
Case Set to Unfold |
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Mark Walker North County Times Wednesday, September 27, 2006 North County - As the
prosecutions of seven Camp Pendleton Marines and a Navy corpsman for the
alleged murder of an Iraqi in April continue, a second and potentially far
larger war crime case is about to unfold. That case centers on the
slaying of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha on Nov. 19, killings
that spawned international condemnation of the U.S. when the story first
surfaced in a report in Time magazine in March. A massive, detailed
investigation of what happened that day conducted by the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service has been sent to Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of
Marine forces in Iraq and head of the Camp Pendleton-based I Marine
Expeditionary Force. Mattis will soon decide if
any of the Marines in Haditha on Nov. 19 will be charged with criminal acts. The general, sources with
intimate knowledge of the case say, probably won't make that decision for at
least a couple of weeks. He has asked investigators to "go deeper"
into a handful of issues in the report before he will decide whether to bring
criminal charges against any of the Camp Pendleton Marines alleged to have
been involved in the case, the sources said. Unlike the Hamdania case, in
which the eight troops were jailed within weeks of the report of the slaying
and one month before they were charged with any crimes, none of the Marines
in the Haditha case have been incarcerated. A second investigation into
how Marine commanders in Iraq responded to the first reports of civilian
deaths in Haditha also has been completed; it was sent to Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld last week, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said
Tuesday from its headquarters in Tampa, Fla. "I can confirm (we)
forwarded a copy to the office of the secretary of defense," Maj.
Matthew McLaughlin said in a telephone interview. "It is part and parcel
of the broader investigation and we are not going to talk any further about
it." That report, prepared under
the direction of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, is expected to lead to
administrative actions against some Marine officers for dereliction of duty
for failing to fully investigate the Haditha killings when they were first
reported. The criminal probe The far greater jeopardy is
for the Marines from the 1st squad, 3rd platoon of Kilo Company from Camp
Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. At issue is the way the
Marines reacted after losing one of their own when a roadside bomb explosion
triggered as their convoy of four Humvees moved through the city shortly
after 7 a.m. The Marines have told
investigators that they were reacting to AK-47 shots from homes a short time
after the bomb explosion claimed the life of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Miguel
Terrazas of El Paso, Texas. But Iraqi civilians who were
present contend that the squad overreacted and stormed through four homes in
search of insurgents after first killing four "military-aged men"
who happened upon the scene in a taxi. After spotting the Marines, the men
fled and were shot as they ran, it has been alleged. That account of the first
shootings by the Marines that day was written by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich's
attorneys in a court pleading filed with his libel suit against U.S. Rep.
John Murtha, D-Pa., who claimed the Marines were out of control and killed
"in cold blood." Murtha has refused to back down from that
statement and declined an offer to have the libel suit withdrawn in exchange
for a public apology. Mattis received the sixth
iteration of the criminal investigation a couple of weeks ago. A Marine
spokesman at Camp Pendleton confirmed Tuesday that the voluminous document is
in the general's hands. "Lt. Gen. Mattis is
provided information about the investigation as it develops in order to make
informed decisions," Lt. Col. Sean Gibson said, adding that the
investigation is not considered closed until any possible legal or
administrative actions are completed. The latter is in fact the
case with any Naval Criminal Investigative Service probe, including the work
the agency did in the Hamdania homicide case arising out of the slaying of a
single Iraqi in April. Until all of the troops charged in that case have had
their cases resolved through such actions as a dismissal, acquittal or
conviction, the investigation is considered open. Mattis was in Washington,
D.C., this week for meetings said to be unrelated to the Haditha
investigation. When he will make his decision, and when the report of the
actions of Marine commanders prepared under the direction of the Army's Gen.
Bargewell, will be made public is uncertain, although there clearly is little
work remaining on the criminal probe. Simultaneous war crime prosecutions? Several of the Marines at
the center of the Haditha probe have retained civilian attorneys in
anticipation of criminal charges being lodged. If that occurs, Camp Pendleton
will have two war crime cases being prosecuted simultaneously. The Naval Criminal
Investigative Service was brought into the case by Marine Maj. Gen. Richard
Zilmer on March 16. Zilmer is the Marine's commanding general in Iraq and
reports to Mattis. The agency dispatched three
agents from Fallujah immediately to Haditha, and on March 18, another five
agents were dispatched from Washington. To date, 65 agents and a
full forensic reconstruction team have worked on the investigation, according
to agency officials, who added that 25,000 man-hours have been spent on the
case and have taken more than 850 "investigative actions." "It's the biggest, or
as big, an investigation that I can recall," said an agency official in
Washington, who asked that his name not be used, last week. ‘Rules of engagement’ Sources say the
investigation suggests that the initial return of fire after the explosion
that killed Lance Cpl. Terrazas was a justifiably "good shoot," as
was the subsequent raid on two homes in which several of the civilians were
killed. The Marines entered two
other homes and killed several more civilians, and those actions, along with
the slaying of the men from the taxi, are said to constitute the bulk of the
questions about whether the Marines were honoring the rules of engagement. Those rules essentially
allow a combat operation against any source of fire or suspected insurgent
stronghold, but are clear in directing that lethal force not be used against
children or apparent civilians unless absolutely necessary. Five women and
six children were among those killed in Haditha. The sources with intimate
knowledge of the investigation say that they fully expect criminal charges
will be brought against some of the Marines, suggesting the information in
the report clearly indicates that some of the actions taken that day crossed
the line between self-preservation and unwarranted killing. The sources also say that
Staff Sgt. Wuterich's version of events as portrayed by his attorneys in his
complaint against Rep. Murtha is "far from fully complete or
accurate." The investigation itself
does not recommend charges, but instead presents the findings of the
investigators with dozens of attached interviews and interrogations, as well
as physical evidence collected at the scene and a reconstruction performed by
a forensic team. Base ready for media crush Camp Pendleton appeared to
be contemplating how it would handle media attention when it built a $760,000
media center this summer. The center features rows of
workstations where reporters can plug in laptop computers and video screens
showing proceedings from the base courtroom. To date, that center has
been used for reporters covering the unrelated Hamdania case. Three pretrial
hearings have been conducted in that incident, leading to Mattis' decision,
announced Monday, that he has ordered they stand trial in courts-martial. Pretrial hearings for the
other five defendants in that case are scheduled for mid-October. External link:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/09/27/news/top_stories/1_01_279_26_06.txt |