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September 13th,
2007 - Military Pre-Trial Hearings End in Haditha Civilian Massacre Case |
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US Military Pre-Trial
Hearings End in Haditha Civilian Massacre Case By Naomi Spencer World Socialist Web Site September 13, 2007 Preliminary military court
proceedings against Marines implicated in the 2005 killing of 24 Iraqi
civilians came to a close last week, with the decision pending review by the
presiding judge in the case. After two years, of eight Marines facing
court-martial for war crimes in Haditha, charges have been dropped against
three. None have been sentenced. On November 19, 2005,
Marines from the 3rd Battalion went on a rampage in Haditha, a small city in
al-Anbar province, after a roadside bomb killed a member in their convoy.
Five civilians, including a taxi driver and four teenage students, were shot
dead in the street. Nineteen more civilians, including unarmed women, elders,
and children, were massacred over the next few hours in three nearby houses. Immediately after the
killings, the Marine Corps issued a communiqué reporting that 15 of the dead
civilians were victims of the roadside bomb and that eight were insurgents
engaging the convoy with gunfire. The entire chain of command
was involved in covering up the massacre, suppressing photographs and other
evidence inconsistent with the official version of events. Investigations by
media and human rights organizations produced video and witness accounts
establishing that the victims, all unarmed, were shot deliberately and
execution-style while trying to surrender. The Haditha case is only one
of three involving war crimes charges involving Marines from Camp Pendleton,
California in the past year. On August 20, a 3rd
Battalion Marine was charged with murdering an Iraqi detainee during the
brutal 2004 siege on Fallujah. His squad leader was arraigned in mid-August
on charges of voluntary manslaughter for shooting two Fallujah prisoners and
ordering the killing of other captives. A third Marine implicated in the
killings has not been named or charged. In another case, seven 3rd
Battalion Marines along with a Navy corpsman kidnapped and executed a
disabled man April 2006, in Hamdania, Iraq, then arranging the scene so as to
make the victim look like an armed insurgent. Five of the defendants accepted
plea bargains and were given maximum 15 months sentences in the brig, two
others were released from prison at the end of their recent courts-martial,
and one received a 15-year sentence. In similar fashion, the
military is dragging the Haditha hearings along slowly, with the final
preliminary testimony concluded last week. Like other military probes, the
Haditha hearings have been dominated by contradictions and reversals in
testimony and dropped charges. Staff Sergeant Frank
Wuterich, charged with 13 counts of unpremeditated murder, was the senior
Marine present during the massacre and the last to receive an Article 32
hearing, the military equivalent to a grand jury hearing. In an unsworn statement read
aloud to the court at Camp Pendleton on September 6, Wuterich defended the
conduct of his squad and maintained that the civilian deaths were
unavoidable. Because his testimony was unsworn, the prosecution could not
cross-examine him. He maintained that all of
the deaths occurred in the midst of a battle with insurgents. “Engaging was
the only choice,” Wuterich told the court. “The threat had to be
neutralized.” Of the men killed in the
street he said, “They were not complying and, in fact, they were starting to
run.” Under combat regulations at the time, he said, the squad was allowed to
engage anyone fleeing the scene of an attack. However, Wuterich’s defense
has no evidence to support the claim the men were attempting to flee, and a
government forensic expert testified that victims’ wounds suggested they were
not in motion when they were shot. Moreover, no weapons were found on any of
the dead. Wuterich was obligated to
address testimony given by Sargeant Sanick Dela Cruz, who was granted
immunity in April in exchange for government cooperation. Dela Cruz, who
admitted to giving at least two false statements to investigators, testified
that Wuterich was responsible for killing the majority of the Haditha
victims. Dela Cruz had testified in
May that a week before the Haditha massacre, Wuterich told the squad to “kill
everybody in that vicinity” so as to “teach them a lesson.” In his statement
last week Wuterich denied saying this. Wuterich also told the court
that after killing the five taxi occupants on the street, the unit came under
fire from the houses. He said he then ordered his unit to “shoot first before
asking questions.” No evidence has been unearthed to substantiate this
version of events. In addition to Wuterich,
Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum faces two counts of murder. On August 23, the
investigating officer overseeing the hearings, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Ware,
recommended these charges be dismissed. Ware found that while Tatum
shot and killed innocent civilians, “he did so because of his training and
the circumstances he was placed in, not to exact revenge and commit murder.”
Ware wrote, “I believe Tatum’s real life experience and training on how to
clear a room took over and his body instinctively began firing while his head
tried to grasp at what and why he was firing. By the time he could recognize
that he was shooting at children, his body had already acted.” Indeed, the brutal and
illegal nature of the invasion and colonial-style occupation, necessitating
the suppression of popular resistance, makes such horrific situations all but
inevitable. The methods of operations embody the outlook of the political and
military leadership, who see Iraqi civilian casualties as the cost of doing business
and who demonize the Iraqi population at large. US soldiers, immersed in
this desensitizing and dehumanizing attitude and terrified for their own
safety, are given orders to do “whatever it takes” to contain resistance. In
this respect, the collective punishment inflicted on the residents of Haditha
bears similarity to the atrocities committed by US troops against Iraqi
civilians on a daily basis. Internal military figures leaked in July indicate
that civilians are shot at by US forces somewhere in Iraq at least every
three hours. Over the past year, the
number of military personnel facing charges in relation to the Haditha
massacre has been whittled down significantly. Besides Dela Cruz, seven other
Marines involved in the killings and cover-up have also been granted
immunity. On August 9, the presiding
judge at Camp Pendleton, Lieutenant General James Mattis, dropped all charges
against Lance Corporal Justin Sharrat, the fourth Marine involved in the
shootings. Charges against Captain Randy Stone for failing to investigate
were also dropped August 9. Three other Marines were
censured for dereliction of duty in connection to their handling of
investigations into the killings. A letter of censure is an uncommon form of
administrative sanction that enters into an officer’s military records. Censured were former
commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division, Major General Richard Huck;
Huck’s former chief of staff, Robert Sokoloski; and Stephen Davis, who acted
as a superior officer over the infantry battalion involved in the massacre.
These officers, who destroyed evidence and quashed investigations, will not
face criminal charges. However, a lower ranking
intelligence officer also charged with obstructing justice, making a false
official statement, and dereliction of duty will likely face an Article 32
hearing. On September 10, First Lieutenant Andrew Grayson rejected a plea
deal from military prosecutors that would have dropped charges in exchange for
an admission of guilt. Grayson is accused of
ordering photographic evidence destroyed to keep it out of a military report.
He rejected the plea offer, he told the Associated Press, because “I was
asked by the prosecution to fall on my sword for the greater good of the
Marine Corps. The prosecution wanted me to distort the truth to fit their end
goal.” The Haditha prosecution is
the largest involving civilian deaths in Iraq, yet the military court
proceedings are in one sense a continuation of the whitewashing effort begun
in 2005. The trials themselves may set the precedent for the way in which war
crimes committed against civilians are handled disciplinarily by the
military. As with the Abu Ghraib abuse
trials, the aim of the Bush administration and military is to pin all
responsibility for a criminal occupation on lowest-ranking personnel, who are
charged with physically carrying out the dirty work. Ultimate responsibility
for war crimes, however, lies at the very top. On August 28, a military
jury acquitted the only officer to face criminal charges in connection with
the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib. The acquittal of Lieutenant Colonel
Steven Jordan, the final defendant in the case, came three-and-a-half years
after photos documenting monstrous abuse at the prison were published.
Testimony suggested that Jordan was an active participant in abusing
prisoners. Eleven low-ranking soldiers
also implicated in the Abu Ghraib case were convicted on charges of prisoner
maltreatment, assault, human rights violations, making false statements, and
other crimes between 2004 and 2006; most served sentences ranging from 90
days to a year in prison and are still serving in the military. Far from pursuing justice,
the military was eager simply to put the Abu Ghraib case behind it.
Illustrating this, the prosecution voluntarily weakened its case against the
officer. For instance, at the outset of the trial, the military abruptly
decided that most incriminating statements made by Jordan on his involvement
in prisoner interrogations were inadmissible. After the jury delivered a
not-guilty verdict on three counts of prisoner abuse and a guilty verdict on
one count of disobeying an order to refrain from discussing the
investigation, prosecutors recommended that Jordan be reprimanded and fined
one month’s pay, the lightest sentence the jury could have recommended. Officials in the military
and the Bush administration, whose efforts throughout the investigations and
hearings have been aimed at covering up their role in authorizing and
ordering torture and other crimes against humanity, see such trials as a
means of damage control and as legal dressing for ongoing crimes. External link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/hadi-s13.shtml |