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June 3rd,
2007 - Investigator Faults Colonel for Actions During Killings News article by New York Times |
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Investigator Faults Colonel
for Actions During Killings By Paul von Zielbauer New York Times June 3, 2007 Camp Pendleton, Calif., June
2 - The Marine infantry officer investigating accusations against a former battalion
commander in charge of marines who killed 24 Iraqi civilians in 2005 on
Saturday implicitly criticized the commander’s decisions to remain miles away
during an hours-long battle with insurgents linked to Al Qaeda. The investigating officer,
Col. Christopher Conlin, a former battalion commander in Iraq, is the
presiding officer at the hearing for Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, who is
charged with dereliction of duty for failing to properly investigate and
report the civilian deaths to his superiors. During a Nov. 19, 2005, battle
in and around Haditha, Iraq, a dangerous Sunni-Arab region in Anbar Province
west of Baghdad, Colonel Chessani remained in his battalion’s combat
operations center, about seven miles from where Marine units were engaged in the
heaviest fighting. On Saturday, Colonel Conlin
questioned a witness, Maj. Samuel Carrasco, Colonel Chessani’s operations
officer in Haditha, about whether Colonel Chessani was right to remain that
far removed from the battle, during which marines killed many civilians in
their homes while hunting insurgents who had bombed their convoy. Colonel Conlin told Major
Carrasco that he could think of other battalion commanders who would have
insisted on being closer to the battle, for tactical and other reasons,
instead of directing combat from a Marine base that relied on grainy video
feeds from an aerial drone. Relying on the drone’s
video, which offered only narrow views, was like looking at the battlefield
through a “soda straw,” Colonel Conlin said, adding that he had led a
battalion around Najaf, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, earlier in the
war. Colonel Conlin asked Major
Carrasco how he would have felt if he were a company commander , instead of a
battalion operations officer, fighting the enemy in Haditha while the
battalion’s commander remained in a combat operations center. Major Carrasco said that in
that case, he would have been upset. The exchange amounted to a
rare criticism of an officer accused of a crime by an investigating officer
sitting, more or less, in judgment of him. In one respect, Colonel
Conlin is an unusual choice for presiding officer in a legal hearing. He is
not a lawyer, though he is being advised in the hearing by another officer
who is. Despite having no experience weighing criminal charges, he is
considered by Colonel Chessani’s defense lawyers to be someone who could see
the harrowing aspects of combat through the eyes of their client, the former
commander of the Third Battalion, First Marines. For his part, Major Carrasco
said he had recommended to Colonel Chessani that he remain at the Marine base
during the day’s battle, because venturing toward it would be prohibitively
dangerous. He said Colonel Chessani agonized about the casualties his marines
were taking during the day. “I believe that Colonel
Chessani had a hard time with those lieutenants getting hit, and those
marines being injured,” Major Carrasco said. “I could see on his face that it
was upsetting him.” The major acknowledged that
some mistakes were made by his battalion. “Sir,” he told Colonel Conlin,
“there is not a day or night that goes by that I don’t wish we didn’t do a
better job.” In other testimony on
Saturday, the former executive officer of the marine company at Haditha said
Colonel Chessani refused to look into questions from a Time magazine reporter
about the civilian deaths because he viewed them as a trap. “If we follow up with an
investigation, it will be an admission of guilt,” said the officer, First Lt.
Adam P. Mathes, recalling what Colonel Chessani told him and other battalion-
and company-level officers in a meeting on Jan. 29, 2006, to discuss the
reporter’s questions. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/world/middleeast/03haditha.html Marine defends officer’s
Haditha actions The witness says he regrets recommending that Lt. Col. Jeffrey
Chessani not inspect the area where Iraqi civilians were killed. By Tony Perry Los AngelesTimes June 3, 2007 Camp Pendleton - The officer
who recommended that Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani not inspect the area where
Marines had just killed 24 Iraqis testified Saturday that he profoundly
regretted his recommendation because it contributed to a false report about
the deaths being filed with superiors. "Col. Chessani is not a
coward," Maj. Sam Carrasco said, leaning forward and looking directly at
the hearing officer, Col. Christopher Conlin. "He'd be the first to go
into a house [filled with insurgents] if we needed to." Carrasco, who was the
battalion's operations officer, said he thought there were too many Marines
and vehicles in the battle-torn neighborhood of Haditha and that Chessani's
presence would only make things more dangerous. He said the body of Lance
Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, killed by a roadside bomb, lay in the street for hours. "Why would we leave one
of our fallen angels out in the street unless you've had a lot of
contact?" Carrasco said, a slight tremor in his voice. Chessani's failure to
inspect the scene of the Nov. 19, 2005, killings has become a major focus of
the Article 32 hearing. Marines killed five young men on a street and 19
other Iraqis, including women and children, in or near three houses. Chessani, who was commander
of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, is charged with dereliction of duty and
failure to obey an order by not calling for a formal investigation of the
killings. Conlin, who was an infantry
battalion commander during the assault on Baghdad in 2003, has asked several
questions of witnesses about Chessani's failure to visit the scene. The questions carry an
implicit criticism of Chessani's decision to stay away. Conlin told Carrasco
that other commanders would have gone to the scene despite the danger. About 18 hours after the
killings, Chessani authorized a report to his bosses at the 2nd Marine
Regiment that gave scant details about the killings of the civilians and,
incorrectly, said that he had inspected the scene. As a result of that report,
high-level officers at the regiment and the 2nd Marine Division decided that
the deaths, though unfortunate, were combat-related and no further
investigation was needed. The military began a probe
only after Time magazine published an article contradicting the Marine Corps
account that the civilians were killed by the roadside bomb and crossfire
between Marines and insurgents. "Sir, there's not a day
that goes by that I don't wish we had done a better job" of looking into
the incident and reporting to superiors, Carrasco said. Even after Time magazine
began looking into the killings, Chessani did not believe that an
investigation was warranted, Carrasco testified. After reading a list of
questions submitted by the reporter, Carrasco said, he and another officer
went to Chessani to suggest an investigation. "We said, 'Hey, sir,
this is going to get bad very fast if we don't do something,'" Carrasco
testified. "He raised his voice, which is something he rarely did, and
said, 'My men are not murderers.' We adjourned the room." Soon after, generals in
Baghdad launched an investigation that resulted in the filing of charges
against Chessani and others. External link: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-abuse3jun03,1,5916987.story |