A dozen Marines may face courts-martial for Iraq massacre

May 25, 2006
by Gayle S. Putrich
Marine Corps Times

A key member of Congress said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if a dozen Marines faced courts-martial for allegedly killing Iraqi civilians Nov. 19. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., told Marine Corps Times that the number of dead Iraqis, first reported to be 15, was actually 24. He based that number on a briefing from Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee on Wednesday.

Hagee visited Capitol Hill in anticipation of the release of two investigation reports, which are expected to show that among the 24 dead civilians, five of the alleged victims, all unarmed, were shot in a car with no warning, Murtha said. The killings took place in Hadithah, 125 miles northwest of Baghdad.

At least seven of the victims were women and three were children.

“If the allegations are substantiated, the Marine Corps will pursue appropriate legal and administrative actions against those responsible,” said Col. David Lapan, a spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters.

“The investigations are ongoing, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process,” he said. “As soon as the facts are known and decisions on future actions are made, we will make that information available to the public to the fullest extent allowable.” Murtha, an outspoken war critic and retired Marine colonel, has maintained for several weeks that the reality of the Hadithah incident was far more violent than the original reports suggested.

“They originally said a lot of things. I don’t even know how they tried to cover that up,” he said.

Two investigations into the incident are ongoing, according to the Pentagon — one by Multi-National Forces Iraq, expected before the end of the week, and a second by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, that is due in June.

The Marine Corps originally said a convoy from the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, hit a roadside bomb Nov. 19 that killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas.

Marine officials initially said 15 Iraqi civilians also were killed in the blast, but later reported that the civilians were killed in a firefight that took place after the explosion.

But a 10-week investigation by Time magazine resulted in a March 27 report that included claims by an Iraqi civil rights group that the Marines barged into houses near the bomb strike in retaliation, throwing grenades and shooting civilians who were cowering in fear.

Three officers from the 3/1, including battalion commander Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, were relieved April 7 for “lack of confidence in their leadership abilities stemming from their performance during a recent deployment to Iraq.”

The two other Marines who were relieved, Capts. Luke McConnell and James Kimber, were company commanders in the battalion.

Officials would not explicitly connect the firings to the Hadithah investigation.

While no charges have been filed yet, defense attorneys who handle military cases are bracing for what could fast become a busy summer season in the courtroom.

“It looks like it’s coming,” said one San Diego area-based civilian defense attorney who has handled other cases of assault and manslaughter and has gotten a sort of “warning order” about potential new cases.

“I think there’s a lot of pressure to do something,” the civilian attorney said.

“It’s going to be extraordinarily difficult for them to find enough defense counsel,” one Marine Corps attorney said.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who was also briefed on the reports, said his committee will hold hearings on the incident after lawmakers return from their Memorial Day recess.

Hunter was matter-of-fact about the reports’ contents.

“It is not good,” he said. “Let the chips fall where they may.”

Hagee was due to brief leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee late Wednesday

Marines may face trial over Iraq massacre

· Report likely to say troops shot 24 unarmed civilians
· Murder charges likely after killings and cover-up

May 27, 2006
by Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
The Guardian

In the Marine Corps, they are quietly calling it their My Lai, the massacre of hundreds of villagers in 1968 that became a symbol for American brutality in the Vietnam war. In this generation's war, the village is Haditha, north-west of Baghdad, where US marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians, including 11 women and children.

In what is being viewed as the gravest allegation to date of war crimes in Iraq, a military investigation is expected to present findings in Baghdad next week that a small group of troops shot dead 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including five men in a taxi, and women and children at homes in the town last November 19.

Other marines then tried to cover up the killings, the investigation has found.

Two lawyers quoted yesterday by the New York Times said they thought the investigation could result in murder charges, making the events at Haditha the worst case of abuse in three years of war.

The Los Angeles Times said the report would conclude that a dozen marines acted improperly and could face charges including murder, negligent homicide, dereliction of duty, and falsifying reports.

Allegations of a massacre at Haditha, a largely Sunni town active in the insurgency, were first reported by Time magazine last March. But the full scale of what happened has been slow to emerge.

"This is not a grey area. It is not a combat situation confused by the fog of war. This was a massacre," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. "If these allegations are borne out, and it looks like they will be, this will be the most serious war crime that has taken place in Iraq."

Military officials in Baghdad initially claimed that the Iraqi civilians killed last November 19 were the victims of a roadside bomb, which exploded near a bus and a military Humvee, killing one marine and 15 Iraqis. Later, officials said the civilians were killed in rapid exchanges of fire between marines and Iraqi militants who had opened fire on the convoy.

However, evidence later gathered by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service suggested that the bloodshed took place over three to five hours.

Yesterday, the LA Times quoted a senior defence department official as saying that none of the 24 Iraqis was killed by the bomb. Although Haditha has proved one of the deadliest cities in Iraq for US troops, none of the marines had come under serious hostile fire on that day.

Officials said most of the bullets were fired from a small number of rifles, although as many as a dozen members of the marine unit are under investigation.

With the investigation approaching completion the Pentagon has begun to try to avoid outrage in Congress as happened two years ago when abuse at Abu Ghraib prison first became public knowledge.

Members of Congress briefed by the Marine Corps have been horrified. Last week, John Murtha, a former marine and Vietnam veteran and a Democratic Congressman who opposes the war, issued a statement saying the civilians had been killed in cold blood by marines who had snapped under the pressures of war.

The episode has also led to serious concern within the Marine Corps about an erosion of values and morale in the midst of a long and brutal insurgency. On Tuesday, the top marine commandant, General Michael Hagee, left for Iraq to deliver speeches on "the American way of war".

However, human rights officials and some members of Congress say they are deeply troubled by the Marine Corps' response to the Haditha killings.

The killings at Haditha mark at least the third time US military officials have presented shifting official versions of events in Iraq, a record that, critics say, has damaged the Pentagon's credibility. Over the last year, the Pentagon has been embarrassed by its campaign to concoct a hero's death in Afghanistan for the football star Pat Tillman, although he was in fact killed by his fellow US Rangers in friendly fire.

The Pentagon also fabricated tales about a wounded and captured private, Jessica Lynch, that were later debunked.

"The real issue now is to move forward in the investigation in a way that fosters public confidence instead of having a plethora of investigations that are so numerous and diffuse that we don't know where they are going," said Eugene Fidell, a military lawyer in Washington.

'Then they killed my granny' - One girl's story

Time magazine, which broke the story about Haditha in March, interviewed Eman Waleed, 9, who lived near to the site of the roadside bomb which killed a marine. She said: "We heard a big noise that woke us all up. Then we did what we always do when there's an explosion: my father goes into his room with the Qur'an and prays that the family will be spared any harm."

She said the rest of the family gathered in the living room. Eman says she "heard a lot of shooting, so none of us went outside. Besides, it was very early, and we were all wearing our nightclothes." When the marines entered the house, they were shouting in English. "First, they went into my father's room, where he was reading the Qur'an," she claims, "and we heard shots."

According to Eman, the marines then entered the living room. "I couldn't see their faces very well - only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny."

She claims the troops started firing toward the corner of the room where she and her younger brother, Abdul Rahman, 8, were hiding; the other adults shielded the children from the bullets but died in the process. Eman says her leg was hit by a piece of metal and Abdul Rahman was shot near his shoulder.

"We were lying there, bleeding, and it hurt so much. Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I was crying, shouting, 'Why did you do this to our family?' And one Iraqi soldier tells me, 'We didn't do it. The Americans did.'"

Photos Indicate Civilians Slain Execution-Style

An official involved in an investigation of Camp Pendleton Marines' actions in an Iraqi town cites `a total breakdown in morality.'

May 27, 2006
by Tony Perry and Julian E. Barnes
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Photographs taken by a Marine intelligence team have convinced investigators that a Marine unit killed as many as 24 unarmed Iraqis, some of them "execution-style," in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha after a roadside bomb killed an American in November, officials close to the investigation said Friday.

The pictures are said to show wounds to the upper bodies of the victims, who included several women and six children. Some were shot in the head and some in the back, congressional and defense officials said.

One government official said the pictures showed that infantry Marines from Camp Pendleton "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results."

The case may be the most serious incident of alleged war crimes in Iraq by U.S. troops. Marine officers have long been worried that Iraq's deadly insurgency could prompt such a reaction by combat teams.

An investigation by an Army general into the Nov. 19 incident is to be delivered soon to the top operational commander in Iraq. A separate criminal investigation is also underway and could lead to charges ranging from dereliction of duty to murder.

Both investigations are centered on a dozen Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. The battalion was on its third deployment to Iraq when the killings occurred.

Most of the fatal shots appear to have been fired by only a few of the Marines, possibly a four-man "fire team" led by a sergeant, said officials with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The same sergeant is suspected of filing a false report downplaying the number of Iraqis killed, saying they were killed by an insurgent's bomb and that Marines entered the Iraqis' homes in search of gunmen firing at them. All aspects of his account are contradicted by pictures, statements by Marines to investigators and an inspection of the houses involved, officials said.

Other Marines may face criminal charges for failing to stop the killings or for failing to make accurate reports.

Of the dead Iraqis, 19 were in three to four houses that Marines stormed, officials said. Five others were killed near a vehicle.

The intelligence team took the pictures shortly after the shooting stopped. Such teams are typically assigned to collect information on insurgents after firefights or other military engagements.

Investigators and top officers of the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which oversees Marine infantry, aviation and support units in Iraq, have viewed the pictures.

The incident began when a roadside bomb attached to a large propane canister exploded as Marines passed through Haditha, a town on the Euphrates River. Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, who was driving a Humvee, was killed and two other Marines were wounded.

Marines quickly determined that the bomb was a "line-of-sight" explosive that would have required someone to detonate it. Marines and Iraqi forces searched houses and other structures in the narrow, dusty streets. Jets dropped 500-pound bombs and a drone aircraft circled overhead.

Time magazine, in a report published in March, quoted witnesses, including a 9-year-old girl, Eman Waleed, who said that she saw Marines kill her grandparents and that other adults in the house died shielding her and her 8-year-old brother, Abdul Rahman.

An elder in Haditha later went to Marine officials at the battalion's headquarters to complain of wanton killings.

The Marines involved in the incident initially reported that they had become embroiled in a firefight with insurgents after the explosion. However, evidence that later emerged contradicted that version.

"There wasn't a gunfight, there were no pockmarked walls," a congressional aide said.

"The wounds indicated execution-style" shootings, said a Defense Department official who had been briefed on the contents of the photos.

The Marine Corps backed off its initial explanation, and the investigations were launched after Time published its account.

Some lawmakers are asking the Marine Corps why an investigation wasn't launched earlier if the intelligence team's pictures contradicted the squad's account. The pictures from the intelligence team would probably have been given to the battalion intelligence officer, and they should have raised questions immediately, one congressional aide said.

The intelligence teams typically comprise Marine Corps reservists, often police officers or other law enforcement officials in civilian life who travel with active-duty battalions or regiments.

Such questions were put to Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee during a series of individual briefings over the last week. One focus of the administrative investigation by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell is to find out how high up the Marine Corps chain of command the misreporting went.

Military officials say they believe the delay in beginning the investigation was a result of the squad's initial efforts to cover up what happened. Military and congressional sources said there was no indication that the members of the intelligence team did anything improper or delayed reporting their findings.

"They are the guys that probably provided the conclusive, demonstrative evidence that what happened wasn't as others had described," a congressional staffer said.

The Marine Corps apologized to the families of several of those killed and made payments to compensate them for their losses. The families have denied permission to have the bodies exhumed for investigation.

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), a retired Marine colonel, said there was clearly an attempt to cover up the incident by those involved. But he said he did not think the Marine command was slow in investigating.

"There is no question that the Marines involved, those doing the shooting, they were busy in lying about it and covering it up — there is no question about it," Kline said. "But I am confident, as soon as the command learned there might be some truth to this, they started to pursue it vigorously. I don't have any reason now to think there was any foot dragging."

As Marines moved across the desert into Iraq on March 19, 2003, each Marine received a signed statement from then-Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, exhorting his troops to fight vigorously but to treat noncombatants with "decency … chivalry and soldierly compassion."

"Engage your brain before you engage your weapon," he said.

As detailed in Bing West's book "The March Up: Taking Baghdad With the 1st Marine Division," Brig. Gen. John Kelly, assistant division commander, was concerned about instances of seemingly random firing by Marines, most of them untested in combat. Kelly is now the Marine Corps' congressional liaison and has helped Hagee deliver briefings to legislators on the investigations into the Nov. 19 incident.

Hagee left for Iraq on Thursday to sternly remind Marines that harming noncombatants violates Marine policy and numerous laws governing warfare. He plans to give the same message to troops at Camp Pendleton and other Marine bases when he returns.

Haditha has been a particularly difficult area for the Marines. Officers have said they lack enough troops to do an adequate job of developing intelligence and then confronting insurgents.

A documentary shown this week on the A&E Network detailed the frustrations of a company of Marine reservists who had 23 members killed and 36 wounded during a deployment last year in Haditha.

One Marine sergeant, in an interview after his unit had returned to Columbus, Ohio, remembered a raid in which he burst into a home and came close to killing two women and a teenage boy out of rage for the deaths of fellow Marines.

Sgt. Guy Zierk, interviewed in the documentary, "Combat Diary: The Marines of Lima Company," said he knew at that point that he had been in Iraq too long.

Perry reported from San Diego and Barnes from Washington. Times staff writer Peter Spiegel in Washington contributed to this report.

Murtha: New Scandal Worse Than Abu Ghraib

Rep. Murtha Says Fallout From Killing of Iraqi Civilians Will Turn Out Worse Than Prison Scandal

May 28, 2006
by Douglas K. Daniel
AP

Comment: Historically, American military units have an appalling record of killing non-combatant  and unarmed civilians, the mealy-mouthed platitudes of David Brooks to the contrary. There was the Okinawa slaughter of Japanese unarmed women and children in 1945, the huge number of Vietnamese killed and tortured  during that war and now we have growing and very pervasive rumors of even worse actions in Iraq. These massacres of Iraqi civilians are not unique to one incident and are certainly known to journalists and others in Iraq. Foreign media are forbidden to enter certain areas being “pacified” but more and more information is surfacing that reflects very darkly on everyone in the United States. BH

Spreading American Democracy, and teen-aged tarts, in South Korea (and elsewhere)

Note: This series of articles comes from the Marine Corps Times and highlights a serious problem now epidemic at U.S. military bases in the Asian area. This trafficking in teen and sub-teen girls, and boys, as objects of pleasure for American troops stationed in the areas involved, has been going on for years and is something the senior field commanders strictly ignore because heterosexual (and occasional homosexual…mostly for officers only…) contacts are considered “good recreation” for bored troops stationed far from home. Many of the sex slaves carry various venereal diseases, and worse, AIDS, but soldiers who contract such diseases are either treated in theater and released or, if the disease is serious enough, shipped back stateside for discreet, isolated treatment. As a point of further interest, troops stationed in areas where sex slaves are located regularly have their personal outgoing mail searched and, when transferred back stateside, their personal luggage as well. This is to interdict,  remove and destroy many pictures of nude children that an officer has said were “repulsive in the extreme.” Ain’t Bush democracy ambassadors wonderful? I wonder if Middle America knows what their sons and husbands are up to while Furthering American Democracy?  Brian Harring

Sex slaves and the U.S. military

May 20, 2006
Marine Corps Times

At a time when the U.S. State Department and the United Nations labor to combat the international trafficking in women, the U.S. military supports a flourishing trade in sex slaves in South Korea.

Hundreds of trafficked women, mostly from former Soviet bloc countries and the Philippines, are forced by local bar owners to work as prostitutes in bars that cater to American servicemen. The women are typically lured to Korea with promises of high-paying jobs but end up being held against their will and coerced into working as prostitutes in circumstances that both the State Department and the United Nations condemn as a form of sexual slavery.

The U.S. military leadership in Korea says it is powerless to put a stop to the practice, which they claim is the responsibility of the Korean police. But the top Korean police expert on prostitution said it is unlikely Korean police will do anything to halt the trafficking because of widespread police corruption.

While U.S. troops continue to be the sex-slave racket’s best customers, U.S. commanders turn a blind eye. And there’s no end in sight.

Report underscores sex-slave problem within South Korea

May 21, 2006
by William H. McMichael
Marine Corps Times

At least 5,000 foreign women have been trafficked into South Korea since the mid-1990s to work as “entertainers” in clubs near U.S. bases, but the actual total “may be much higher,” according to a new report.

This and other findings in the just-released August 2002 report by the independent International Organization for Migration, based in Geneva, parallel the findings of an Aug. 19 story, “Sex slaves,” published in the Military Times papers.

That story noted the almost ubiquitous presence of foreign women in clubs near U.S. bases in Tongduchon, Uijeongbu, Songtan and many other locations in South Korea. Many of these women, that story and the new IOM report concluded, went there to work as dancers and hostesses with guarantees of good pay and working hours.

Instead, they work long hours for low pay, are virtual prisoners of club managers and frequently are forced to have paid sex with U.S. military customers.

“Women trafficked into the Korean entertainment industry endure working conditions that clearly exploit them,” the IOM report stated. “Some of these women are brought to South Korea to provide sexual services and are required to do so sometimes from the very first day they arrive in South Korea.”

The report said “a conservative estimate would indicate that hundreds of women” are brought to South Korea every month for such purposes. Most come from the former Soviet states and the Philippines.

The IOM report concludes that organized groups are involved in trafficking but stops short of indicting any specific criminal gangs, although such allegations have been made by watchdog groups.

Nongovernmental organizations working to rescue trafficked women and lobbying for policy changes are hopeful the report will boost their efforts.

“It’s been getting some response from the Korean government,” said Goh Hyun Ung, head of the IOM’s Seoul office. Goh said he and members of other private groups are organizing a forum on trafficking which was to be held in Seoul late this month and which officials from the Ministry of Gender Equality, the Ministry of Justice and its Immigration Bureau planned to attend.

The IOM report notes that the first concerns within Korea over trafficking stemmed from mid-1990s reports of foreign women working in bars near U.S. Army posts.

The report also alleges the U.S. military, in an effort to “keep the men happy,” has reached “a sort of collusion with local businesses, local government and military bases to support a camp town entertainment/prostitution industry.”

U.S. Forces Korea is generating a report ordered by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at the request of 13 members of Congress, on the extent of troop involvement with trafficked women.

The results are not expected for months, but the command’s Eighth Army decided to address the issue as part of an Oct. 10 peninsulawide standdown to discuss “safety, risk management and the South Korean culture.”

Eighth Army spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Boylan said the issue “will be discussed by the chain of command on our command policy as well as other information that might be available at that time.”

The command “does not condone or support any illegal activities such as human trafficking or any other illegal activities of any nature,” he said. Commanders at all levels will take an active role in ensuring that service members, civilians and dependents remain safe and do not violate Korean law.”

Boylan said the briefing has not yet been finalized.

Comment: This is one of the reasons why all American troops were cleared out of Okinawa recently and relocated to Guam. Fear of reprisal attacks by the PRC in the event of our “military actions” against that country is the prime reason but the on-going sexual abuse by American troops of young and very young Okinawans is another. This has reached epidemic proportions and has so infuriated the Japanese government in Tokyo that the move was deemed necessary. Also, the pregnancy and venereal disease rates are simply not to believe. Considering this Neanderthal behavior, it is no wonder that a highly developed PRC spy ring was in place on Okinawa and no one with any knowledge of the rage of the local population is surprised at the enormous, and very important, volumes of information relayed from Okinawa to the PRC on a daily basis. Considering the number of local hires at various Okinawan military facilities, no one ought to be surprised. Brian Harring