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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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October 6th,
2007 - The Erosion of a Murder Case Against Marines |
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The Erosion of
a Murder Case Against Marines in the Killing of 24 Iraqi Civilians By Paul von Zielbauer New York Times October 6, 2007 Baghdad, Oct. 5 - Last year,
when accounts of the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha by a group of marines
came to light, it seemed that the Iraq war had produced its defining
atrocity, just as the conflict in Vietnam had spawned the My Lai massacre a
generation ago. But on Thursday, a senior
military investigator recommended dropping murder charges against the ranking
enlisted marine accused in the 2005 killings, just as he had done earlier in
the cases of two other marines charged in the case. The recommendation may
well have ended prosecutors’ chances of winning any murder convictions in the
killings of the apparently unarmed men, women and children. In the recent case, against
Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the investigator recommended that he be charged
with negligent homicide if the case moved ahead to court-martial. In the
other two cases, the investigator recommended dropping all charges. Experts in military justice
say the Haditha prosecutions were compromised by several factors having to do
with the quality of the evidence, including a delayed investigation and the
decision to conduct hearings in the United States, far from the scene of the
killings and possible Iraqi witnesses. The cases also reflect the
particular views of Lt. Col. Paul J. Ware, who presided over the hearings and
concluded that all three cases lacked sufficient evidence. He made clear in
his recommendations to the commander who ultimately decides the cases that he
felt that the killings should be considered in context - that of a war zone
where the enemy ruthlessly employed civilians as cover. Perhaps nothing handicapped
military prosecutors more than the delay in investigating the killings, on
Nov. 19, 2005, because battalion officers initially decided the case did not
require an inquiry. The attack began after a roadside bombing of the marines’
convoy killed a comrade; led by Sergeant Wuterich, a group of marines then
killed 24 people over several hours. Nineteen of the 24 were killed in their
homes. By the time the Marine Corps
announced murder charges against the infantrymen, 13 months had passed.
Evidence vanished, witnesses evaporated and memories paled. Those problems with
collecting evidence were further complicated because Haditha remained a
combat zone. When forensic experts traveled there last year to interview
family members of those killed, heavily armed Marine infantrymen had to guard
them, and even then, insurgent fire forced the investigators to abandon the
scene after an hour. Beyond that, Islamic custom
dictates that families bury their dead within hours. Relatives of those
killed in Haditha refused American requests to exhume the bodies for forensic
analysis. In addition, the collection
of evidence was hurt by the decision to hold evidentiary hearings for the
marines in the Haditha case at Camp Pendleton, Calif., rather than in
Baghdad, where some other cases have been heard. “In the Vietnam era, you
often had the lawyers, the witnesses, the scene, the victims’ families - you
had them right there,” said Gary D. Solis, a former Marine judge who teaches
the laws of war at Georgetown University Law Center. “If you happened to have
a witness who had rotated back to the United States, you could call them back.” In the end, in Colonel
Ware’s view, expressed in dozens of pages of analysis and opinion in his
reports on all three cases, the Haditha prosecutors failed to amass enough
evidence to win a conviction. In his latest report, in
which he recommended dismissing 10 murder charges against Sergeant Wuterich
and reducing seven others to negligent homicide, Colonel Ware wrote that the
evidence presented to him “is simply not strong enough to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt.” He made similar conclusions
in his reports on the cases against two other infantrymen for whom he urged
the dismissal of all charges: Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, whose murder
charges were subsequently thrown out by the commanding general overseeing the
case, and Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, who is still waiting to hear the
general’s decision. Commanders usually follow investigators’ recommendations. “When you have an
investigating officer like Ware, who says ‘don’t go there if you can’t
prove,’” your case, Mr. Solis said, “we’re left with what appear to be very
reduced charges.” He added: “He’s aggressive, and he seems to make his
judgments without regard for anything but the law. He must know that people -
civilians, primarily - are going to howl about this, but that doesn’t seem to
be a concern.” Other military law experts
also noted that in his two reports on the charges against Lance Corporals
Sharratt and Tatum, Colonel Ware revealed a willingness to give the men the
benefit of the doubt, and to consider the impact of the prosecutions on the
morale of troops still fighting in Iraq. “It does surprise me to see
that the killing of seven women and children by grenades and rifles, for the
purposes of clearing structures, is being treated the way this investigating
officer has treated it,” said Eugene R. Fidell, an expert in military law in
Washington. In an unusual departure from
the analysis of the facts in Lance Corporal Sharratt’s case, Colonel Ware
warned that putting marines on trial for murder without having the evidence
to prove it could “erode public support of the Marine Corps and mission in
Iraq.” Michael F. Noone, a law
professor at Catholic University and a retired Air Force lawyer, said Colonel
Ware was right to assume that rulings in the Haditha cases might have an
impact on the overall war effort. Last week, he noted, testimony in a Baghdad
military murder trial suggested that an Army sniper, a member of one of the
most highly trained infantry units, had planted evidence on the remains of a
dead fighter - as insurance against second-guessing. “That’s somebody who doesn’t
trust the system,” Professor Noone said. “Do you want kids out there
representing the United States who don’t think they’re going to be treated
fairly?” External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/world/middleeast/06haditha.html |