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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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July 31st,
2007 - Marines Keep Combat Rules to Themselves News article by the Los Angeles
Times |
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Marines Keep Combat Rules to
Themselves Testimony at hearings for Iraq war crimes, however, suggests
restrictions governing the use of deadly force are a gray area. By Tony Perry Los Angeles Times July 31, 2007 Camp Pendleton - The
war-crime hearings underway here have led to an unusual public airing of some
of the Marine Corps' most tightly held combat secrets: the so-called rules of
engagement that govern when Marines can use deadly force in Iraq. Testimony thus far suggests
the rules are ambiguous and subjective, and leave many Marines feeling they
are being hamstrung in their ability to protect themselves by killing or
capturing the enemy. In the Haditha cases, where
enlisted Marines are charged with murder, defense attorneys assert their
clients were following the rules of engagement when they shot 24 Iraqi
civilians, including women and children, minutes after a fellow Marine was
killed by a roadside bomb in November 2005. Five were pulled from a taxi and
killed, and 19 were killed in three nearby houses. Prosecutors, with equal
conviction, say the Marines were violating the same rules. The hearing
officer said he's confused about what the rules permit. The rules of engagement are
so central to Marine culture that they are treated as a closely held secret.
During hearings in other cases, the courtroom has been cleared while evidence
about the rules has been discussed. Reporters who travel with Marine
battalions have to sign an agreement not to disclose such rules. Boiled down, the rules
require a four-step process before Marines can fire their M-16s: show, shout,
shove and then shoot. A Marine must also have positive identification of a
target as a threat. A target must have shown not just a hostile intent but
also hostile actions. But the definitions of
positive identification, hostile intent and hostile action are subjective,
and thus can change from one area to the next, one day to the next, according
to testimony. In the Hamandiya case,
defendants are accused of kidnapping and killing an unarmed Iraqi man in
April 2006, then planting a shovel and assault rifle near his body to make it
look like he was an insurgent planting a bomb. Testimony by one of their
officers in that case suggests frustration with the rules of engagement may
have led the Marines to look to a B-grade Hollywood movie for a tactical
solution. A platoon lieutenant
testified that one night while on a fruitless ambush mission, his Marines
started talking about the 1999 movie "The Boondock Saints," in
which young men in Boston begin killing the gangsters that are terrorizing
their neighborhood and seem beyond the reach of the law. The movie's message was
clear: The killings weren't legal, but they were morally justified. A couple of nights later, a
squad of Marines led by Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III allegedly carried out a
plot to kidnap and execute a suspected insurgent leader in Hamandiya as a
warning to other Iraqis to stop attacking Marines. Hutchins faces murder
charges. The lieutenant, who
testified in the Hamandiya case Friday, said he was unaware of the plot but
added that on other occasions, he had ordered tactics not mentioned in the
rules of engagement, like choking suspects and putting a gun in one suspect's
mouth until he provided information about planned insurgent attacks. "It was a gray
area," said 2nd Lt. Nathan Phan, "and I thought I was doing the
right thing to get information to save Marines' lives." The judge, hearing testimony
from Phan and defense witnesses, told the defense attorneys that their case
seemed to be based on the assertion that the rules of engagement "are
tying our hands up and people are laughing at us." In the Haditha cases, where
enlisted Marines killed numerous civilians during a raid, the hearing officer,
Lt. Col. Paul Ware, has repeatedly expressed exasperation at testimony about
the rules of engagement. Capt. Kathryn Navin, a
lawyer who briefs Marines in Iraq before they go into combat, testified that
it is permissible to shoot and kill people fleeing a roadside bomb attack
even if they are unarmed and no proof exists that they were involved in the
attack. But, Navin added, it is not
necessarily permissible to kill someone just for pointing a gun at you. "So the [rules of
engagement] are more restrictive than the common law, where [a civilian] can
kill someone who points a gun at you?" Ware asked with a note of
incredulity. Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore, who
was the battalion intelligence officer when Marines killed 24 civilians in
Haditha, testified that there is continuing conflict between frontline
Marines and upper-level officers about what constitutes positive
identification and what behavior defines hostile action. In the preliminary hearing
of Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, prosecutors assert that, under the rules of
engagement, he had a responsibility to identify his targets as threats before
firing. Tatum is accused of killing six unarmed civilians in Haditha,
including women and children. "Marines are required
to positively identify a target, even a house that is considered
hostile," said Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury, the lead prosecutor. "Is it
challenging? Yes. Unfortunately that's the reality we have." But Tatum's lawyer, Jack
Zimmerman, said Tatum was following the most important rule of all - coming
to the aid of other Marines, who were firing at targets inside the house. "You cannot sit back in
this air-conditioned room at Camp Pendleton and second-guess these young
men," Zimmerman told Ware. Ware will make a
recommendation to Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis on whether Tatum should go to
court-martial. He has already recommended that Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt
not be court-martialed. One of the thornier issues
about rules of engagement concerns firing at houses where insurgents may be
hiding behind civilians. In their pre-combat lecture, Marines are told that
once a house has been declared "hostile," it is permissible to fire
on it. But a Pentagon law-of-war
expert, W. Hays Parks, said, "The fact that [the insurgents] use human
shields doesn't give us authority to start firing and say, 'The fault is
yours, not ours.' " Parks was testifying in the case of Lt. Col. Jeffrey
Chessani, accused of dereliction of duty for not investigating the Haditha
killings. But looser rules seem to
apply when a decision is made to use air power. Testimony suggests that
civilian casualties are expected, and tolerated, when a decision is made to
drop a bomb or fire a missile at a "high-profile" target rather
than send in ground troops. "You can declare [Al
Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab] Zarqawi hostile and drop a bomb on the house
and kill him and everybody in the house," said Lt. Col. Brian Cosgrove,
one of Hutchins' attorneys. After they receive lectures
in Camp Pendleton and Iraq, Marines are given small cards summarizing the
rules of engagement to keep in their pockets. Marines called as character
witnesses for the defendants have made no reference to whether they are
judged fit for combat based on their knowledge and obedience to the rules of
engagement. Rather, a Marine's dedication to helping colleagues survive
appears to take precedence. "He's a good
noncommissioned officer," Capt. William Diaz testified about Cpl. Trent
D. Thomas. "Good NCOs are hard to find. He would get his Marines home
alive; that's the primary thing." Thomas, making an unsworn
statement to the same jury, said, "Every Marine I ever served with knows
Cpl. Thomas has his back." The jury, which had
convicted Thomas of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder in the
Hamandiya plot, decided not to sentence him to additional time in the brig
beyond the 14 months he spent behind bars awaiting his trial. Navin testified that Marines
are given a 70-slide lecture on the rules before being sent to the front
lines. The final slide in the formal lecture shows a cartoon of an Arab
figure, riding a camel and waving a sword, who has just lopped off the nose
of a fighter jet on the ground. The pilot asks, "What
are the rules of engagement?" External link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-rules31jul31,0,42885.story |