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August 3rd, 2006 - Officers
Allegedly Pushed 'Kill Counts' News article by the Los Angeles Times |
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Officers Allegedly Pushed
'Kill Counts' Investigators believe the leaders of a unit accused in Iraq detainee
deaths fueled a climate of hate. By Borzou Daragahi and Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writers Los Angeles Times August 3, 2006 Baghdad - Military
prosecutors and investigators probing the killing of three Iraqi detainees by
U.S. troops in May believe the unit's commanders created an atmosphere of
excessive violence by encouraging "kill counts" and possibly
issuing an illegal order to shoot Iraqi men. At a military hearing
Wednesday on the killing of the detainees near Samarra, witnesses painted a
picture of a brigade that operated under loose rules allowing wanton killing
and tolerating violent, anti-Arab racism. Some military officials
believe that the shooting of the three detainees and the killing of 24
civilians in November in Haditha reveal failures in the military chain of
command, in one case to establish proper rules of engagement and in the other
to vigorously investigate incidents after the fact. "The bigger thing here
is the failure of the chain of command," said a Defense Department
official familiar with the investigations. As allegations of U.S. troop
misconduct in Iraq have mounted, the military's defenders have maintained
that most were isolated incidents and that officers and investigators working
within the military justice system had succeeded in ferreting out the truth. The military's primary
report on the Haditha incident, completed this year, does not explicitly
accuse the Marine command in Iraq of a cover-up. But the investigation cites
several instances of information being ignored or evidence being destroyed,
including log entries from the day the killings took place. The Defense
official, who has reviewed the report, spoke on condition of anonymity
because the findings have not been released. Initial findings of
investigators looking into the Samarra incident may be even more troubling.
Military officials are investigating Army Col. Michael Steele, the commander
of the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade, whose soldiers are accused of
killing the three Iraqi detainees. Investigators are trying to
determine whether Steele issued an illegal order to "kill all military
aged males" and encouraged unrestrained killing by his troops. On Wednesday, a military court
heard testimony from a witness who suggested that a culture of racism and
unrestrained violence pervaded the unit. The account of Pfc. Bradley
Mason and other witnesses bolstered the findings of investigators who say the
brigade's commanders led soldiers to believe it was permissible to kill Iraqi
men. Military prosecutors allege
that four U.S. soldiers killed three unarmed Iraqi detainees during the May 9
raid. If convicted on charges of premeditated murder, Pfc. Corey R. Claggett,
Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard and Spc. Juston R.
Graber could face the death penalty. Wednesday's hearing was held
at the 101st Airborne headquarters near Tikrit, Iraq, and is a preliminary
investigation, equivalent to a civilian grand jury. The hearing is scheduled
to continue today. Mason said that just before
"Operation Iron Triangle" began on an island in Tharthar Lake near
Samarra, Steele and other officers ordered them to "engage and kill all
military age men." The Defense official familiar
with the investigation said that even if Steele did not issue a verbal order,
many in the brigade believed that was what the commander wanted. A spokeswoman said the
military could not respond to the specific allegations against Steele until
the investigation was completed. A senior military officer
has sent a potentially career-ending reprimand to Steele, an officer who once
commanded a Ranger company sent into Mogadishu, Somalia, on a rescue mission
that was recounted in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."
However, the administrative action is not final because Steele has signaled
that he is going to fight the accusations and the reprimand. Steele has refused to
testify in the case of the four soldiers, citing his right against
self-incrimination, unless he is given immunity, prosecutors said. The colonel has a reputation
as a tough but potentially reckless commander. Investigators have found that
Steele handed out knives to U.S. troops as rewards for killing insurgents, a
defense official said. The investigation of Steele was first reported Tuesday
by ABC News. Before the Tharthar raid,
Claggett and Hunsaker had not yet notched a kill on a brigade chart nor
earned their knives from Steele, the defense official said. The primary prosecution
witness Wednesday was Mason, who testified under a grant of immunity. Mason
has admitted making several false statements to investigators, and defense
lawyers are likely to challenge his credibility. Mason depicted a unit that had
embraced a violent ethos and was routinely hostile to ordinary Iraqis.
Commanders encouraged soldiers to compete to rack up "enemy kills,"
he said. A board at their headquarters that showed the numbers of Iraqis
killed served to reinforce the message. "Let the bodies hit the
floor," read a phrase at the bottom of the board. "That's another
terrorist down," Mason quoted Girouard as telling soldiers after they
killed someone. "Good job." Soldiers referred to
ordinary Iraqis derogatorily as "hajis," a reference to Muslims who
have made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, and considered the 10 or so Iraqi
army soldiers and interpreters working for their unit as mostly
"terrorists," Mason said. Under questioning, Mason acknowledged
saying that even before he arrived in Iraq, he asserted that "every man,
woman and child in Iraq deserves to die." On May 8, the day before the
raid, Steele reportedly addressed a group of about 100 soldiers. "We're going in
tomorrow," he told them, according to 1st Lt. Justin Werheim, another
prosecution witness. "We're going to hit the ground shooting, and kill
all the Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents." The rules of engagement were
unambiguous, Werheim said, and came down "several times" via Capt.
Daniel Hart, who also has requested immunity. "We were to positively
identify and kill any military-age male on the island," Werheim said. Another witness, Pfc. Jason
R. Joseph, said the soldiers believed their orders were to kill any
military-age males who were not surrendering. "They were to kill any
males who didn't have their hands in the air," he said. The soldiers arrived by
helicopter as dawn broke, and Mason testified that they expected to take
heavy fire after they landed. Mason said that as they approached one house,
he unleashed a burst of six to nine rounds from his weapon, killing an
"old man" standing in the window. Mason testified that there
was no Iraqi gunfire that morning. When defense lawyers asked him why he
killed the man, Mason said those were his orders. "We were told to kill
all the males on the island," he testified. "We don't fire warning
shots." Inside the house where Mason
shot the man, soldiers found three men cowering behind a pair of women, Mason
testified. The soldiers pulled the men outside and bound their hands with
plastic handcuffs before searching the house. They found nothing but an AK-47
and a few rounds of ammunition, allowed by law. Claggett and Hunsaker smiled
when Girouard said they were going to kill the detainees, already handcuffed
and disarmed, according to Mason's account. "I told [Girouard] I'm not
down with it," he said. "It's murder." Mason testified that he
stayed in the house while the other four soldiers took the detainees outside.
He heard Hunsaker yell out a profanity, and then heard automatic weapon fire,
followed by two shots from a semiautomatic assault rifle, Mason testified.
Prosecutors believe that Claggett and Hunsaker shot and killed the detainees. Mason testified that Claggett
told him two of the detainees had broken free of their plastic cuffs, and
that one of them had lunged at Hunsaker with a knife, giving him a scratch.
The other had punched Claggett in the face. The soldiers then shot and killed
the three detainees. But Claggett later told him
that Girouard had punched Claggett and cut Hunsaker to justify the killings,
Mason said, adding that men in the squad also began threatening and
pressuring Mason to keep quiet. Mason said Girouard threatened to kill him if
he informed. Defense Department officials
said that officers in Mason's company and brigade failed to investigate the
shooting, even after Mason and others raised concerns. The failure echoes the
findings of the Haditha investigation. The Times reported in June that
portions of the Haditha report, compiled by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell,
show senior Marine officers missed a number of "red flags" that
should have led them to uncover an attempt to obscure the details of the
incident. The investigation was
completed last month, but Pentagon officials have declined to release the
findings. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said Wednesday that it would not be made public until after Army Gen. George
W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, had finished reviewing it. Daragahi reported from
Baghdad and Barnes from Washington. Times staff writers Peter Spiegel in
Washington and Tony Perry in San Diego contributed to this report External link: Accused U.S. Soldiers Refuse
to Testify By Ryan Lenz The Associated Press Thursday, August 3, 2006; 2:25 PM Tikrit, Iraq - Four U.S.
soldiers accused of murdering Iraqi detainees refused to testify Thursday at
a military hearing, where witnesses described how one of the victims spat blood
as he lay dying and another was covered in brain matter. The four invoked their right
not to testify for fear of incriminating themselves at the hearing to
determine if they should be court-martialed for the May 9 shooting deaths.
Instead, their attorneys submitted sworn statements and rested their case on
the third day of the hearing. The defendants - Pfc. Corey
R. Clagett, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard and Spc.
Juston R. Graber - initially said the three detainees were killed because
they tried to escape, but military prosecutors have said they were freed
before being shot. The shootings have raised
questions about the Army's rules of engagement during combat and dealt
another blow to the reputation of U.S. soldiers, fueling anger against the
coalition presence. The U.S. military's conduct has also come under criticism
from international human rights groups. In his testimony, witness
Cpl. Brandon Helton said he was the last man off the helicopter that brought
the accused and other soldiers to a corner of a marshy island outside
Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, in search of suspected al-Qaida
operatives. Helton said the three Iraqis
had already been detained when he arrived, but he saw them trying to flee
before they were shot. Some of the detainees had their blindfolds down and
were "running at full sprint," he said. At that point, the soldiers
fired. "The first one fell
flat down and the second one, whenever he got shot, it was kind of like what
you'd see in a movie where he spun around and landed on his back,"
Helton said. "I seen one spitting up blood." Another witness, Spc. Micah
Bivens, a medic, recalled hearing shots but said he did not see the soldiers
fire. Bivens said as he approached
the fallen men, he knew immediately two were dead. "There was nothing
there to sustain life," he said. "The last few seconds of
life." He said he checked the third
person. "To me there is no way that he could have been alive considering
there was brain on the ground." Defense lawyers are arguing
the soldiers were only following the orders of brigade commander Col. Michael
Steele to "kill all military-aged males." Bivens said he doesn't
recall hearing such an order. Steele, who led Army Rangers
during the 1993 battle for Mogadishu in Somalia, has denied the allegations.
He declined to speak to reporters about the charges, and has also invoked his
right not to testify. Girouard, Hunsaker, Clagett
and Graber could face the death penalty if the case is passed on for a court-martial.
They are accused of concocting a story to justify the shootings and covering
it up from military prosecutors. The first three are also
accused of obstruction of justice for allegedly threatening to kill Pfc. Bradley
Mason, the prosecution's leading witness, who testified Wednesday. "It's our position that
you didn't prove anything in this case," Paul Bergrin, a civilian
attorney, said Thursday to prosecutors after submitting the sworn statement
by his client, Clagett. All the soldiers were
assigned to the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry
Regiment. The hearing is expected to
conclude Friday with testimony from Iraqi soldiers who took part in the raid
the Army had dubbed "Operation Iron Triangle." © 2006 The Associated Press External
link :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080300255.html |