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September 7th,
2007 - Marine Says Haditha Killings the ‘Only Choice’ after Bombing News article by the Associated
Press News article by the New York
Times |
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Marine Says
Haditha Killings the ‘Only Choice’ after Bombing By Allison Hoffman Associated Press September 7, 2007, 1:29AM Camp Pendleton, Calif. - A
Marine accused in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians told a military court
Thursday "the threat had to be neutralized" after a roadside bomb
hit his convoy and killed a fellow Marine. Marine Staff Sgt. Frank
Wuterich made his unsworn statement as a military hearing ended into the
slayings in the town of Haditha. "Engaging was the only
choice," he said. In all, 24 civilians were
killed by Wuterich's squad in the aftermath of a bomb blast on Nov. 19, 2005.
Among the dead were women and children who were killed in their homes as
Marines went on a house-to-house sweep. Wuterich, 27, also said he
will "always mourn the unfortunate deaths of the innocent Iraqis who
were killed during our response to that attack." Wuterich is accused of
unpremeditated murder in 17 of the killings. Under military law,
prosecutors could not cross-examine him about the killings that sparked the
biggest criminal case against U.S. troops in the Iraq war. At his preliminary hearing,
Marine Corps officials were trying to determine if his actions were
consistent with his training and with combat rules in place at the time. Wuterich, of Meriden, Conn.,
previously said he was following rules of engagement that were then in place,
and that he attacked the houses because he thought gunfire was coming from
them. On Thursday, he spoke for
about half an hour from his seat at the defense table. He kept his hands
folded in front of him as he answered questions from his attorney. Haditha was "ominously
quiet" as his men rolled out on a supply run the day of the attack, he
said. After the bomb exploded, the mission quickly shifted to countering the
attack, he testified. "I realized my mission
had changed. We had practiced this scenario before, in classrooms, on
whiteboards," he said. Wuterich, who was on his
first combat tour, described shooting five men because they were starting to
run away. Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, a
squadmate, had testified the men weren't running but were instead "just
standing around," some with hands interlocked on their heads. Dela Cruz testified with
immunity after prosecutors dropped murder charges against him. He also said
Wuterich had told him to tell anyone who asked that the men had been running
away. Wuterich is also charged
with making a false official statement and telling Dela Cruz to do the same. Wuterich said Thursday he
never told Dela Cruz to lie. He also said he did not stop
to check who was in the houses his men cleared. Wuterich said he wasn't
required to positively identify his targets before shooting because he had
determined the houses were hostile. Wuterich, a father of three
daughters, said he has had nightmares about the attacks. "I can look at my
family, and I know that I would not want that to happen to them," he
said. "I will never be OK with how events turned out that day." Wuterich faces a possible
life sentence and dishonorable discharge if court-martialed. Lt. Col. Paul Ware, the
investigating officer overseeing the Haditha case, will make a recommendation
about whether Wuterich should stand trial. Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who is
overseeing the case, will make the final decision. Ware has already recommended
that charges be dismissed against two other Marines who had been charged with
murder in the same case. On Wednesday, three
high-ranking Marines were given censures, the military's most severe
administrative punishment, for their roles in investigating the deaths. External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5114812.html Marine’s
Defense Team Ends Haditha Hearing Abruptly By Paul von Zielbauer New York Times September 7, 2007 Camp Pendleton, Calif.,
Sept. 6 - A military hearing for a Marine squad leader accused of killing 17
Iraqi men, women and children in Haditha in 2005 ended abruptly on Thursday,
after only three days of testimony that seemed to provoke more questions than
answers. Lawyers for the defendant,
Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, had been expected to call a fellow infantryman,
who testified last week against Sergeant Wuterich, back to the stand. That
witness, Lance Cpl. Sanick Dela Cruz, had told the court that Sergeant
Wuterich killed five unarmed Iraqi men who got out of a car near the scene of
a roadside bomb attack against the marines. After a three-hour delay,
however, the defense dropped its plan to cross-examine Sergeant Dela Cruz and
the hearing ended. Sergeant Dela Cruz, who
received immunity in April after prosecutors dropped murder charges against
him in exchange for his testimony, had testified that Sergeant Wuterich fired
his M-16 rifle at the five men as they stood near the car, some with their hands
raised in surrender. The defense had been expected to challenge that view. Sergeant Wuterich has
admitted to shooting the men but said they began running away, defying orders
to halt. His lawyers argued that running away in the moments after the bomb detonated
could be construed as a hostile act under the Marine Corps rules of
engagement in Iraq, where such attacks have posed the most frequent and
deadliest threat to American troops. But Sergeant Wuterich’s
lawyers have not been able to prove that the men were running away; on the
contrary, testimony from a government forensic expert said the men’s wounds
suggested that they were not moving away when they were shot. Sergeant Wuterich, 27, of
Meriden, Conn., is also charged with killing 12 other Iraqis, including seven
women and children, in two homes after a Marine officer, First Lt. William T.
Kallop, ordered the unit to clear an area south of the scene of the bomb.
Lieutenant Kallop was also granted immunity in return for his testimony. Sergeant Wuterich’s hearing
is the last involving the four men initially charged with murder after the
attack. Murder charges against one of two enlisted men were dismissed in
July. Last month, Lt. Col. Paul J.
Ware, who has presided over the hearings for all three enlisted men in the
Haditha case, recommended dismissing all charges against the other enlisted
man, but no decision has been made. Those two men - Lance Cpl.
Justin L. Sharratt and Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum - were charged with
killing nine people. As a more senior marine,
Sergeant Wuterich has been portrayed by prosecutors as responsible for not
only his own actions but also those of his men. Before the proceeding
closed, Sergeant Wuterich read a nine-page statement to Colonel Ware, who
will advise a Marine general whether sufficient evidence exists to forward
the charges to a court-martial. In the statement, Sergeant
Wuterich took responsibility for his decisions in the heat of battle to kill
people in the two houses who he said were suspected of being armed
insurgents, and for the order he gave to his men to “shoot first, ask
questions later.” “I wanted them to
understand,” he said, repeating a central argument of his defense, “that
hesitation to shoot would only result in the four of us being killed.” Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/world/middleeast/07haditha.html Wuterich says he mourns
Iraqi deaths Hearing ends for Marine sergeant at center of Haditha killings By Mark Walker North County Times September 7, 2007 Camp Pendleton - Accused of
leading his troops in what prosecutors say was the wrongful killing of two
dozen Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha nearly two years ago, Staff Sgt.
Frank Wuterich has served as a symbol for U.S. military action in Iraq having
gone awry. On Thursday, a calm and
clear-speaking Wuterich said in a military courtroom that he followed his
training after his squad was attacked by a roadside bomb and that he will
forever regret the loss of innocent life. "As a sergeant and a
squad leader, I am responsible for the decisions made to employ the tactics
we used that day," Wuterich told Lt. Col. Paul Ware, the Marine officer
who presided over a four-day hearing for the accused Marine. Ware will
recommend whether Wuterich should face trial in the deaths of 17 of the 24
Iraqi civilians. "I will always mourn
the unfortunate deaths of the innocent Iraqis who were killed during our
response to that attack," Wuterich was leading a squad
from Camp Pendleton on a resupply mission the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, when
a Humvee was destroyed by a roadside bomb, killing a lance corporal and
injuring two other Marines. Moments later, five men who
emerged from a car that drove up were killed by Wuterich and another Marine.
Wuterich said those men were running away when he knelt and shot them in the
belief they were insurgents responsible for the roadside bombing and possibly
carrying a bomb in their car. "The threat had to be
neutralized," he said. Nineteen other Iraqis,
including six children and two women, would die in the next few hours as Wuterich
and his Marines stormed four homes. According to testimony, they were in
search of the bomb's triggerman and those they believed were shooting at
them. Most of the 27-year-old
Marine's comments came as he read from a prepared statement. He then answered
several questions from his lead attorney, Neal Puckett, who asked how he felt
about the incident, which would draw international attention to Wuterich and
the Marines. "I will never be OK
with what happened that day," Wuterich said. "One of my Marines got
killed, two of them got seriously injured. "Personally, I feel
like there were certain decisions that I made then that I might have changed,
such as taking a different route back." As his wife and parents
watched him speak from the gallery of a base courtroom, the married father of
three daughters also expressed remorse. "Families got killed
that day, and I know I can look at my family and I would not want that to
happen to them," he said. "I will never be OK with how the events
turned out that day." Wuterich also denied saying
a week prior to the incident that if his squad was ever attacked he would
lead his men in killing everyone in the vicinity. A witness against Wuterich,
squad member Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, testified last week that Wuterich made
that statement. Wuterich also rejected Dela
Cruz's testimony that Wuterich told him to say the men from the car were shot
by Iraqi army troops with the Marines that day. Investigating officer’s work Ware now has to weigh often
contradictory testimony of government witnesses and the rules of engagement
in place in 2005 as he decides whether there is sufficient evidence to
recommend that Wuterich face a court-martial. Ware may have tipped his
hand in remarks at the close of the hearing. He told prosecutors he wanted
them to explain in writing why Wuterich should be held accountable for the
deaths of six Iraqis inside a bedroom of the first home they stormed. In his statement, Wuterich acknowledged
leading the assault on the homes, an action that he said came from an order
issued by Kilo Company platoon Lt. William Kallop. Wuterich said he never
shot anyone inside the first two homes. Of the four men originally
charged with the Haditha killings, prosecutors later dropped five homicide
counts against Dela Cruz in exchange for his testimony. Earlier this summer, Ware
recommended dropping the charges against squad member Lance Cpl. Justin
Sharratt, and last month made a similar recommendation in the case against
Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum. Camp Pendleton's Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the
authority over the case, agreed to drop the charges against Sharratt. Mattis
has not yet ruled on whether to drop the charges against Tatum. Officers also charged The Haditha killings
prompted a worldwide outcry when reported by Time magazine in March 2006.
Included in the criticism leveled at the Marines was a statement from Rep.
John Murtha, D-Pa., who said the troops were overstressed and had
"killed in cold blood." That comment set off a
political firestorm and re-energized the debate over the Iraq war. When the killings occurred,
Marine commanders in Iraq initially decided the deaths were "collateral
damage" from combat. That was the official line
until two months after the killings, when a Time correspondent who had spoken
with survivors asked questions about it. By March of last year, the military
ordered a full-scale investigation into the killings and how commanders handled
the incident. In December, the results of
those inquiries were murder charges for Wuterich, Dela Cruz, Sharratt and
Tatum. Four officers from their unit, Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st
Marine Regiment, were charged with dereliction of duty for failing to fully
investigate the case. Charges against one of those
officers, Capt. Randy Stone, have since been dropped. The battalion commander
at the time, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, has been recommended to face
court-martial. Hearings for the other officers,
1st Lt. Andrew Grayson and Capt. Lucas McConnell, are pending. Grayson's
attorney Joseph Casas said Thursday that he has asked the hearing for his
client to take place in November. On Wednesday, the Marine
Corps announced it had censured three other Marine officers for failing to
order an investigation, including former 2nd Marine Division commander Maj.
Gen. Richard Huck. External link: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09/07/news/top_stories/1_01_069_6_07.txt |