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The War Profiteers - War Crimes, Kidnappings,
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June 21st, 2006 - Marines Missed
“Red Flags,” Study Finds |
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Marines Missed “Red Flags,”
Study Finds By Julian E. Barnes and Tony Perry The Los Angeles Times Wednesday 21 June 2006 Corps failed to inquire
further into killing of civilians in Haditha, a disclosed summary says. Washington - A report on the
killing of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines has found that senior military
personnel in Iraq failed to follow up on "red flags" that should
have indicated problems with and potential inaccuracies in initial accounts
of the incident, according to a portion of the report's summary. The report questions why
senior military officers in western Iraq failed to investigate further what
happened in the town of Haditha when they learned that civilians there had
been killed in the November incident. A portion of the executive summary of
the report, by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, was read to The Times by a
Defense Department official who requested anonymity because the report had
not been released publicly. "Virtually no inquiry
at any level of command was conducted into the circumstances surrounding the
deaths," Bargewell wrote, according to the excerpt provided to The
Times. "There were, however, a number of red flags and opportunities to
do so." Military officials have said
a squad of Marines killed the 24 civilians in Haditha after a roadside bomb
killed a member of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st
Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton. After the incident, the
Marines involved reported that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb
or in the crossfire of a battle between the Americans and insurgents. In a
public report, the Marine Corps attributed the deaths to a roadside bomb. Bargewell was assigned to
investigate the actions, or failure to act, of the Marines' leadership, in
part to determine whether officers sought to cover up the incident. A
separate inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is expected to
determine whether criminal wrongdoing occurred. Commanders at Camp Pendleton,
where seven Marines and a Navy corpsman allegedly involved in the Haditha
incident are being held in the brig, will decide whether charges should be
filed against the men. The Bargewell report has not
been released and is still being reviewed by Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, a
top U.S. commander in Iraq. But military officials have said that though it
suggests there was no deliberate cover-up by senior Marine officers, there
were many failures in the follow-up. For instance, the executive
summary of Bargewell's inquiry argues that problems with the reports
submitted by the Marines of Kilo Company should have been apparent to leaders
of the Marine command in the area, called Multinational Force-West, or
MNF-West. "No follow-up actions
regarding the civilian casualties were deemed necessary by the senior
leadership of MNF-West," the report reads. "Initial reports of K
Company and its subordinate units were untimely, inaccurate and incomplete.
They were conflicted, poorly vetted and forgotten once transmitted." The summary suggested that
Marine officers missed several opportunities to probe more deeply into the
incident. One of those involved the 2nd Marine Division comptroller, who
would have been responsible for making compensatory payments to the families
of the civilians who were killed. The comptroller told the staff judge
advocate's office - which functions as the division's legal counsel - that he
believed the incident "might require further reporting." But the advocate's office
didn't act on the comptroller's request. "The 2nd Marine
Division SJA did not forward any reports of the incidents to the higher
headquarters," the report said. Top Marine Corps officials
have also concluded that the $38,500 in compensatory payments made to the
relatives of those killed in Haditha should have caused the 2nd Marine
Division to examine the incident more closely. Marine Corps Commandant Gen.
Michael Hagee went to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina this month to emphasize
his disappointment with the top level of the 2nd Marine Division,
headquartered there, for not examining the "after-action" reports
more thoroughly. While deployed to Iraq, the
battalion involved in the Haditha incident reported to 2nd Marine Division
headquarters. Senior Marine Corps
officials have concluded that there was a "failure of leadership"
in the division, whose officers, it was determined, should have launched an
inquiry long before they did. A formal inquiry was not begun until Time
magazine began looking into the incident for an article it published in
March. The Corps has not waited for
Bargewell's findings. His report is likely to make recommendations about how
the military in Iraq can improve its investigations of incidents in which
civilians are killed. In advance of that advice
being made public, the Marines have moved to overhaul their procedures. They
have also begun to discipline the officers who supervised the squad involved
in the Haditha incident. In April, when the 3rd
Battalion returned to Camp Pendleton, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding
general of the 1st Marine Division, relieved the battalion commander and
company commander whose troops were involved in the incident because of a
"lack of confidence in their leadership." External link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-marines21jun21,1,1016690.story?coll=la-headlines-world |