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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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March 3rd,
2007 - Hamdania Commander Warned About Excessive Force |
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Hamdania Commander Warned
About Excessive Force By Mark Walker North County Times March 3, 2007 12:33 AM PST Camp Pendleton - The Marine
commander in charge of troops operating in the Fallujah area when an Iraqi civilian
was kidnapped and shot to death last year said Friday that he routinely
warned about unnecessary use of force. Lt. Col. David Furness
testified during a motions hearing for one of eight men charged in the
slaying that he often counseled his men about their conduct when operating
among the civilian population. "What I had to impress
upon the Marines was discretion in the use of force," said Furness, who
commanded Camp Pendleton's 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment when it was in
Iraq last year. "In the heat of doing that, Marines will get frustrated
and fed up. "Blowing up everything
was easy, but that wasn't going to get us where we wanted to go." Furness' appearance in the
case of Cpl. Trent Thomas was the first time the battalion commander had
testified in any of the dozens of court sessions arising out of the slaying
of retired Iraqi police Officer Hashim Ibrahim Awad last April. Thomas is one of eight men
from a 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment platoon charged with murder and
related offenses in the incident that took place in the village of Hamdania
northwest of Baghdad. Five have pleaded guilty to offenses other than murder
as a result of negotiated plea agreements. The platoon was assigned to
Furness' battalion because of shortages created by transfers to Baghdad in
response to increasing sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital, he said. Its
mission was to carry out patrols and counterinsurgency efforts. "We needed to have
Marines out mingling with the people they were there to protect,"
Furness testified. Now the executive officer
for the 1st Marine Regiment, Furness was called by prosecutors to explain why
he approved a search of the accused men's belongings and why he had asked the
Naval Criminal Investigative Service to conduct an investigation into the
killing. Thomas' attorneys are
attempting to have evidence seized during that search and a resulting
statement their client made to investigators barred from use at his trial,
which is set to begin in June. The 22-year-old Thomas pleaded
guilty to murder and related charges Jan. 18, but was later allowed to
withdraw those pleas and take his case to trial. The judge who presided over
the hearing, Lt. Col. David Jones, will announce his decision on the issue
and a defense request for an exhaustive pre-trial hearing within the next few
days. Furness said he learned in
early May that his initial belief that the troops' actions being within the
rules of engagement may have been wrong. Word that the shooting was really a
kidnapping and murder as relatives of the slain man were contending initially
came from a U.S. Navy medical corpsman assigned to the platoon. The corpsman, Melson Bacos
who was the first to plead guilty in the case and received a 12-month jail
sentence, told investigators that the squad had seized the man from his home,
marched him to a spot where a roadside bomb had previously been detonated,
tied his hands and feet and shot him to death. The killing was carried out
to "send a message" to Hamdania-area residents that the Marines
were not going to put up with attacks, Bacos and the others who have pleaded
guilty have testified. It was just that sort of
scenario that Furness said he often worried about. "Too many Iraqis were
being killed just traversing to and from their homes," he told the
court, adding that Marines on the front lines often have no idea of how their
actions are affecting the course of the war. "The sense of having an
effect on the insurgency was not readily apparent." The Hamdania killing came
within weeks of the first public reporting and outcry over the deaths of 24
civilians in the city of Haditha at the hands of a different group of Camp
Pendleton Marines, and that gave him pause, Furness testified. "Haditha had just blown
up and I believed it was prudent to protect the command, the Marines and the
Marine Corps," Furness said of his decision to ask for a formal
investigation. Before the Bacos statement,
Furness said he learned that the squad leader, Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III,
volunteered to an investigator that he had shot the Iraqi three times in the
head after discovering he was still alive despite having been shot multiple
times. Furness said he still was
operating under the theory the shooting was justified and that Hutchins' actions
weren't proper but could be excused. "When he got there he
should have administered aid, but I thought that was a minor violation --
putting three rounds into the guy's head to put him out of his misery." Lt. Col. John Baker argued
that all of Furness' actions were proper. "Lt. Col. Furness is
the epitome of a combat commander and a Marine Corps leader," Baker told
the judge, adding that believing the defense's contention that his approval
of the search warrant was anything but legal was "preposterous." Hutchins is to go to trial
next month. He also appeared in court this week as his attorneys attempted to
suppress statements he made to investigators. The judge presiding over his
case has yet to rule on that request. The remaining defendant, Lance
Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, also is slated to go to trial - in late April. In the Haditha incident,
four enlisted men from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment
were charged in December with murder and related offense. Four officers also
were charged with dereliction of duty for allegedly failing to properly
investigate that incident. A firm court schedule for
those eight men has yet to be established. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/03/news/top_stories/11_05_463_2_07.txt |