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June 6th,
2007 - Marines Balked at Haditha Inquiry News article by the Los Angeles Times |
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Marines Balked at Haditha Inquiry War-hardened attitudes and a suspicion of Iraqis led to a decision not
to investigate the slayings of 24, officers testify. By Tony Perry Los Angeles Times June 6, 2007 Camp Pendleton - War
weariness and a deep suspicion of Iraqis kept Marines from investigating
after their troops in the town of Haditha stormed three houses and killed 19
people and yet found no weapons or insurgents, officers testified Tuesday. 1st Lt. William Kallop said
that on the night of the incident the U.S. Marines in central Iraq were still
reacting to the death of Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, killed earlier in the
day by a roadside bomb, and were focused on what they expected to be dangerous
days ahead. No "after-action" report was done, he said. "We had just lost a
Marine, and our guys were stressed out," Kallop testified at a hearing
for an ex-battalion commander accused of not launching an investigation of
the Nov. 19, 2005, incident. "Guys on their second and third deployments
were saying … 'Here we go again.' "We had to get ready
the next day to go outside the wire again." Capt. Oliver Dreger
testified that Marine officers rejected, without discussion, the demand a
week later by the mayor and town council of Haditha for an investigation of
the killings. The mayor presented officers
with a petition in English calling the killings unjustified and saying some
of the dead had been executed. But the mayor was suspected
of having insurgent ties, in part because he had demanded that Marines
release an Iraqi woman arrested with 30 passports for Jordanian men,
cellphones and a large amount of cash, all considered indications of
involvement with insurgents. The petition, Dreger
testified, was seen as "posturing, political maneuvering" by the
mayor. Dreger, a battalion intelligence officer, was in a position to hear
and see how officers reacted to events. The testimony came as
prosecutors sought to determine whether Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the former
battalion commander, had asked questions about how 24 civilians had been
killed, 19 in three houses and five earlier outside their car.
"No," Dreger said. Chessani and three other
officers are charged with dereliction of duty for not triggering an
investigation of whether the bloodshed constituted a war crime. Three
enlisted Marines are charged with murder. A fourth has had charges dropped in
exchange for his testimony. Kallop and Dreger testified
that although the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, had arrived in Haditha only
six weeks earlier and had not seen prolonged combat there, many of the
Marines had fought in the city of Fallouja in late 2004. The Fallouja battle
was the Marine Corps' most sustained street combat since the battle for the
city of Hue during the Vietnam War. Officers had lectured Marines
that Haditha was not like Fallouja and that less aggressive tactics would be
required. But under prodding from a
defense attorney, one officer indicated that the message did not sink in. "I always thought
Three-One was sent to Haditha because they were veterans of Fallouja and they
knew how to go into a hardened place and root out insurgents," Lt. Mark
Towers, the battalion adjutant, testified Tuesday. "I expected Haditha
to be another Fallouja." The Marines also had heard
from comrades in a unit they replaced in Haditha about the insurgents' tactic
of hiding behind civilians. Kallop, the platoon
commander, said his Marines were shaken by Terrazas' death but did not go on
a "rampage," as the Haditha town council alleged. Kallop gave the order to
"clear" houses, which led to the killing of three women, seven
children and nine men in three of the houses. "They did not have
grief in their eyes," Kallop said of Marines in his platoon. "They
were operating as we have trained them." Prosecutors assert that the
Marines overreacted and then lied when telling their superiors, including
Kallop, about what happened in the houses. Kallop testified that he
gave the order to clear the houses even though no one could be certain that
insurgents were hiding inside. On Tuesday, he defended his action. "I was trying to get
the insurgents, to get the bad guys, and to protect our guys," he said
in videotaped testimony. For his actions in leading
the assault on the houses, squad leader Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich was
nominated by Kallop for a Bronze Star. The lieutenant said Wuterich
told him later that while clearing the houses, the Marines heard AK-47s being
prepared for firing in the first house and encountered someone firing at them
in the second house. Wuterich is now charged with
12 counts of murder. "He was personally the
least aggressive" of the company's squad leaders, Kallop testified.
"But he was also professional and knows his job." External link: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-haditha6jun06,1,3869299.story Marines shielded by bad
facts, officer says By Rick Rogers San Diego Union-Tribune June 6, 2007 Camp Pendleton – For months,
questionable information reported as facts helped to deflect blame from
Marines accused of murdering 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, an intelligence
officer testified yesterday at Camp Pendleton. Capt. Oliver B. Dreger
described one of the suspicious explanations – that 15 of the Iraqis were
killed by a roadside bomb – as “ridiculous on its face.” He said commanders of Camp
Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment knew that some Marines had
killed the civilians with grenades and small-arms fire while raiding several
houses on Nov. 19, 2005. The raid took place shortly after a bomb blew up one
of the Marines' Humvees, killing a lance corporal. In the end, Dreger said,
neither he nor other officers felt obliged to correct the accounts about what
happened that day in Haditha. That's because the civilians' deaths were
linked to combat between Marines and insurgents, he testified. The errant information was
apparently sent to higher military headquarters. Months passed before Time
magazine published a story in March 2006 that questioned whether any combat
took place and whether the Haditha incident amounted to a massacre. The
article sparked investigations into what could be the United States' worst
atrocity in the Iraq war. Dreger testified during the
sixth day of the pretrial hearing for Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the
highest-ranking officer accused of not properly reporting or probing the
Haditha incident. He and three other officers are charged with violation of a
lawful order and dereliction of duty. Three enlisted Marines are
accused of killing the civilians – five of them near the bomb blast and 19 in
the houses. Prosecutors and defense
attorneys are questioning witnesses and presenting other evidence to Col.
Chris Conlin during Chessani's pretrial hearing. Conlin will later recommend
whether Chessani should face court-martial, and the decision will rest with
Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at
Camp Pendleton. If Chessani is tried and
convicted, he could be dismissed from the military and sentenced to two years
in prison. In the past week,
prosecutors have repeatedly argued that Chessani committed a crime by not
investigating the Haditha deaths. The clear evidence that civilians were
killed, the sheer number of people who died, and other factors should have
triggered a probe, they have said. Chessani's attorneys have
said their client had no reason to believe the deaths arose from anything but
a legitimate combat action. They also assert that even higher-ranking
officers in Iraq didn't raise questions despite learning within hours about
the deaths of men, women and children in Haditha. Yesterday, however, one
officer said he did ask for more information concerning the incident. Maj. Carroll Connelley, a
lawyer at Chessani's headquarters in Iraq at the time of the Haditha deaths,
testified that he was frustrated by the dearth of details from lower-ranking
Marines. Connelley said he sought elaboration after an initial report was
light on specifics. “Yes, I would've asked for
an investigation” if reports had documented how no weapons or insurgents were
found among the dead civilians, Connelley testified. He said that in light of the
misinformation, especially the premise that civilians got caught up in
bona-fide combat, Chessani was not required to investigate the incident
further. External link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20070606-9999-7m6chessani.html |