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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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May 22nd,
2007 - Request for Generals at Next Haditha Hearing Denied |
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Request for Generals at Next
Haditha Hearing Denied By Mark Walker North County Times May 22, 2007 8:34 AM PDT Camp Pendleton - Prosecutors
are resisting defense requests to have several former top U.S. generals in
Iraq testify at an upcoming hearing for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, who is
accused of failing to investigate the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha
in 2005. Chessani's attorneys want to
hear what the generals knew and why, like their client, they didn't order an
investigation into the deaths. Two of those it wants to testify, Gen. George
Casey and Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, were the top commanders in Iraq at the
time. Prosecutors rejected the
request as "immaterial" in a one-sentence statement sent to
Chessani's attorneys Monday. "But that's just the
government's position," said Brian Rooney, one of Chessani's attorneys.
"We are petitioning the hearing officer and anxious to see what he has
to say. The decision is ultimately his." In the military justice
system, a defense request for witnesses is first filed with prosecutors. If
they reject the request, the defense can appeal to the hearing officer who
has the authority to overrule the denial. The denial also covered a
requested appearance by Maj. Gen. Stephen Johnson, the man in charge of
Marines in the Anbar province when the killing occurred. Rooney said
Johnson's testimony could be crucial for Chessani, one of four officers
charged with dereliction of duty for failing to order a probe immediately
after the incident. In early 2006, Johnson told
Army investigators examining how Marine commanders handled the Haditha deaths
that he didn't feel the deaths warranted an investigation and that killing of
innocents in combat situations were not uncommon. "It happened all the
time," Johnson is quoted as telling the investigators in a report of his
comments published last month in the Washington Post. Chessani was commander of
Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment at the time of the
incident, in which five Iraqi men who emerged from a car were shot minutes
after a roadside bombing killed a lance corporal and injured two other
Marines. Before the day was over, another 19 Iraqi civilians, including two
women and five children, would die at the hands of Marines inside homes near
the site of the bombing. The men who carried out the
killing claimed the deaths resulted from the roadside bomb and a subsequent
firefight, a story that did not hold up when investigated several months
later. Chessani was relieved as battalion commander when the unit returned
home in April 2006. Chessani's hearing to
determine if he will face trial by court-martial begins at Camp Pendleton on
May 30 and is expected to last through June 9. The Article 32 hearing is akin
to a probable cause hearing in civilian court. The first Article 32 hearing
in the Haditha case ended last week and is now in the hands of a hearing officer,
who will make a recommendation on whether defendant Capt. Randy Stone should
stand trial for dereliction of duty. Maj. Gen. Richard Huck, head
of the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq at the time, testified during the Stone
hearing that he had told Chiarelli and Casey that he believed the killings
were "collateral damage" resulting from combat. That was the
initial report of what happened and didn't change until a Time magazine
reporter, Tim McGirk, interviewed relatives of the victims and began asking
questions in January 2006. "It goes a lot further
than Gen. Huck," Rooney said in reference to the other generals. The government has named a
handful of witnesses it intends to call during Chessani's hearing. The
defense plans to call about 30 witnesses, but will not hear from Time's
McGirk, who is refusing to testify, Rooney said. On another front, Navy
Secretary Donald Winter has rejected calls for a probe of Naval Criminal
Investigative Service agents who interviewed witnesses and the men who were
ultimately charged. Chessani's attorneys last
month filed a complaint with Winter alleging the agents had used bullying
tactics that included not allowing several Marines to use the bathroom or
have anything to eat or drink during lengthy sessions. The tactics, the attorneys
complained to Winter, seemed to be part of an effort to find wrongdoing based
on comments made last year by U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., that the
enlisted Marines responsible for the death had killed in cold blood. "It is reasonable to
conclude that the improper conduct of NCIS agents ... was fueled by a desire
to substantiate Congressman Murtha's irresponsible public statements,"
the attorneys said in their request to Winter. Winter responded late last
week, saying that the Department of the Navy enforcement agency follows the
law and that no investigation was necessary. Hearings for three enlisted
men facing murder charges in the deaths take place at the base this summer. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/22/news/top_stories/1_02_125_21_07.txt |