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May 13th,
2007 - Haditha Hearing Shows Leadership Mind-Set News article by North County Times |
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Haditha Hearing Shows Leadership
Mind-Set By Mark Walker North County Times May 13, 2007 1:02 AM PDT Camp Pendleton - If the
slaying of two dozen civilians 18 months ago in Haditha was a war crime, as
prosecutors assert, not a single Marine commander seems to have considered
that possibility until questions were raised by a journalist two months after
the event. Testimony heard over the
last five days at Camp Pendleton made it clear that officers from the rank of
captain to general accepted the initial reports of what occurred - that the
deaths were nothing more than what the military calls "collateral
damage." Word throughout the chain of
command was that even though the dead included two women and five children
slain inside their homes, the "NKIAs" as the Marines call
noncombatants killed in action, were victims of crossfire and nothing more. That theme was heard from
numerous officers who testified last week during a hearing for Capt. Randy
Stone, the battalion's legal adviser and one of four officers charged with
dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the deaths. Three enlisted men
face murder charges. The hearing to determine if
Stone faces court-martial continued in a daylong session Saturday with a top
Marine legal officer saying he accepted the initial account despite the high
number of civilian deaths and went on about the business of the war. "In this case, it
appeared the noncombatants were killed because of the IED and a subsequent
ambush, and I saw no reason to investigate that, "said Lt. Col. Kent
Keith, who was the staff judge advocate for the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq
when the killings occurred. "It's not a violation if there is incidental
loss of life. There isn't an automatic law-of-war violation if you have
collateral damage," Insurgents among the dead What is known throughout the
world as "the Haditha incident" emerged as a flash point in the
U.S. involvement in Iraq because of contentions that a squad of Camp
Pendleton Marines went on a rampage after a roadside bombing the morning of
Nov. 19, 2005, killed a lance corporal and injured two other Marines. The Marine Corps released a statement
soon afterward saying that 15 civilians died in the bombing and that eight
insurgents died in a resulting firefight. But months later the Marine
Corps would say 24 townspeople died, including five men who were shot at
gunpoint while standing with their hands raised in surrender, according to
Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, one of the men who participated in the shooting,
testified Wednesday. The 19 people killed in the
homes died when troops from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment were
ordered by platoon commander Lt. William Kallop to conduct a "clearing
operation." The order was based on a report that insurgents were using
the structures as cover for a small-arms attack. Despite not clearly knowing
who may have been behind the doors, the Marines went from house to house,
tossing a grenade into each room they encountered and following up with
automatic weapons fire. According to intelligence
reports that the Marine Corps has never released, several of the people
inside were insurgents, as were some of the men from the car, Stone's
attorney Charles Gittins said outside of court Saturday. A Marine Corps spokesman,
Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, later said he could not comment on any classified
material that may give a full accounting of the number of dead determined to
be insurgents. When the service filed
charges Dec. 21, its written statement referred to the dead only as "24
Iraqi civilians." The Marines paid more than
$40,000 in restitution to survivors of 15 victims killed in two of the houses
after determining those people had no hostile intent. Relatives of four men killed
in a third house got no payment because those men were believed to be
insurgents, Marine Maj. Dana Hyatt testified Saturday. Hyatt also said no payments
were made to relatives of the five men killed as they were held at gunpoint
when they emerged from a car minutes after the bombing. No money went to
their survivors because of a never-verified report that the car contained
weapons indicating those men were insurgents. Another general to testify? One of the more dramatic
moments of the hearing came Thursday when former 2nd Marine Division Maj.
Gen. Richard Huck testified under oath via a video link with the Pentagon,
where he is now assigned. Huck testified for two
hours, explaining why he relied on the first reports coming up from Haditha
as to why he didn't believe the incident needed investigation. Stone's attorney Charles
Gittins has asserted Huck should have been charged with dereliction of duty
but wasn't because, he said, the Marine Corps didn't "have the
stomach" to accuse a general. Huck's testimony was beamed
into a conference room at the I Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters that
includes clocks on the wall showing the current time in Iraq and around the
world. The general said it wasn't
until questions were raised in January 2006 by a Time magazine reporter that
he had any inkling the killings may have violated the rules of engagement.
Huck said he was angered when he learned his staff knew of the allegations
two weeks before it was brought to his attention by one of his bosses, Lt.
Gen. Peter Chiarelli. "What am I, the last
guy in this outfit to find out about this?" Huck said he asked his
staff. Huck told Chiarelli he still
believed from everything he was being told that the civilians were killed in
the course of a legitimate combat action. That changed the next day, when on
Feb. 13, 2006, Chiarelli told him there would be a formal investigation. Huck might not be the only general
heard from during the prosecutions. Chessani's attorneys want
Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq at the time, to testify
during the hearing for their client, scheduled to begin at Camp Pendleton on
May 30. "If General Casey knew
what General Huck knew, we need to hear about that," Chessani attorney
Brian Rooney said Saturday. The attorneys have a meeting
set for Tuesday with prosecutors to discuss whether Casey will be called. Chessani didn't order a
probe, Rooney said, because "you don't go after Marines after a combat
action assuming they are criminals." Paying for deaths, damages A Marine officer, who
inspected the two homes 10 days after the killings, testified Saturday that
he saw body parts, bloody mattresses, shell casings and an unexploded
grenade. "It was the most blood
I had ever seen," said Maj. Dana Hyatt, who testified under a grant of
immunity. Hyatt was the 3rd
Battalion's officer in charge of making what would end up at $38,000 in
payments to families of 15 survivors. On the day he inspected the
homes, Hyatt said, he asked one of the men who took part in the assault, Cpl.
Hector Salinas, what had happened. "He mentioned that he
thought they heard rounds being chambered in the first house and that's why
they threw a grenade in there," Dana said. "In the second house,
they thought there were insurgents in there." Hyatt also approved paying
$3,000 to the owners of the homes for structural damage. ‘He was the tripwire’ Former Marine Corps attorney
Gary Solis, now a professor of military law at Georgetown University, said
that from his understanding of the testimony, what's been heard can be viewed
in a couple of ways. "When women and
children are involved, that should have been a point of all-stop," Solis
said Saturday during a telephone interview. "Whenever you have that many
noncombatant deaths, it should have prompted questions." Stone, as the battalion's
legal adviser, could be viewed as a kind of first-responder with the
obligation to advise his commanders that an investigation should take place. "The man on the scene
was Captain Stone - he was the tripwire to alert people that an investigation
may be necessary," Solis said. But Stone's defense that
senior officers, including Huck and the battalion commander at the time, Lt.
Col. Jeffrey Chessani, didn't seem to think any investigation was necessary
may be the tipping point for whether the charges against him stand. The testimony of Sgt. Dela
Cruz, who along with Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich shot the five men who emerged
from a car that drove up immediately after the bombing, could be very harmful
for Wuterich, Solis said. "His testimony is
obviously very damaging, but what will be critical is the assessment of
members of his testimony," Solis said, referring to a military jury that
would hear the case against Wuterich if it reaches trial. "But on its
face, the testimony is damning and could be fatal to Sergeant Wuterich." Murder charges against Dela
Cruz were dropped last month in exchange for his testimony. Solis also said that hearing
numerous senior officers say they didn't question the deaths is disturbing. "That this number of
noncombatants can be killed and not raise an eyebrow speaks volumes about our
war." What's next The hearing drew widespread
media interest, including a correspondent from Germany's Der Spiegel weekly
magazine and reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters and
The Associated Press. When the testimony ends,
Maj. Thomas McCann will write a report to Camp Pendleton's Lt. Gen. James
Mattis stating whether he believes Stone should be sent on to court-martial. If Mattis decides the
testimony shows Stone failed to carry out his duties, the 34-year-old
Maryland native will be tried at Camp Pendleton and could face two years
behind bars and a dismissal from the service if convicted and given the
maximum sentence. Hearings for the other
officers, Chessani and 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson and Capt. Lucas McConell, take
place later this summer. Hearings for the men charged with murder - Wuterich
and Lance Cpls. Justin Sharratt and Stephen Tatum will play out in the coming
weeks. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/13/news/top_stories/1_22_255_12_07.txt 8 killed in
Haditha called insurgents If true, it could help 3 accused Marines By Rick Rogers San Diego Union-Tribune May 13, 2007 Eight of the 24 people whom
Marines are accused of killing in Haditha, Iraq, were described yesterday as
insurgents by a defense attorney and a Marine liaison officer during a
pretrial hearing. Defense attorney Charles
Gittins said the eight were identified by human and electronic intelligence.
They were not mentioned by name. The eight were among five
men ordered from a car and shot to death and four men killed in a home
cleared by Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, said Gittins,
who is representing Capt. Randy Stone at a pretrial hearing at Camp
Pendleton. Stone is charged with failing to investigate and properly report
the killings. Last week, Capt. Jeffrey
Dinsmore, the intelligence officer for the battalion, testified that “it's
fairly well established through the (unmanned aerial vehicle) coverage that
there were insurgents in those homes,” referring to the homes where civilians
were killed. Gittins' comments outside
court were supported by Maj. Dana Hyatt, a Marine liaison officer in Haditha,
who testified yesterday under a grant of immunity that four men that Marines
killed inside one of three houses that the Marines cleared were insurgents.
If proved, the developments could complicate the prosecution of three Marines
charged with murder in the November 2005 incident. “Obviously this will make a
difference,” said Tom Umberg, a former military defense counsel, prosecutor
and judge. “It's a fact favorable to the defense. I think it adds a new
dynamic to what the Marines did. It may affect whether their actions were
reasonable.” John Hutson, former judge
advocate general for the Navy and now president of the Franklin Pierce Law
Center in Concord, N.H., agreed that this could help the defense. “If it is true and one-third
are insurgents, it would certainly be complicated to explain how these guys
should have been able to differentiate between the good guys and the bad
guys,” Hutson said. “It gives the defense the
argument they were looking for.” Yesterday was the fifth day
of the pretrial hearing for Stone, a legal officer. He is the first of three
officers to face charges of failing to investigate and accurately report the
incident. The hearing, which will determine whether the case will go to a
court-martial, will continue tomorrow. Three enlisted Marines from
the battalion's Kilo Company are accused of going on a rampage after a
roadside bomb blast killed one Marine and wounded several others. Two of the Marines – one
since granted immunity – were accused of shooting five men who arrived in a
car shortly after the bomb explosion and killing 19 other Iraqis in three
nearby houses over the next hour. Top battalion officers
strongly believed that insurgents used the civilians who were killed as human
shields for their attack on the U.S. convoy and then fled during the Marines'
counterattack, Dinsmore testified. Marine Corps officials never
investigated the Iraqis' deaths, believing that the civilians were killed
during a battle with insurgents. Hyatt testified that he
visited two houses where 15 civilians had died. “The walls were black,”
Hyatt said. “Obviously a grenade had gone off and I think there were bullet
holes in another room. “It looked like hair and
stuff in the ceiling, blood on the floor. “It was the most blood I'd
ever seen.” External link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20070513-9999-7m13haditha.html |