Marines implicated in civilian deaths (report + video- abs news)

catstevens · Jun 7, 2006

Photo Gallery: Death in Haditha (click)
*Peace and love*
Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

wackyiraqi · Jun 7, 2006

catstevens, are you as upset at the terrorists killing muslims as you are the US military killing muslims? also, what were you fighting for before the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan?

catstevens · Jun 7, 2006

wackyiraqi

wackyiraqi said:

catstevens, are you as upset at the terrorists killing muslims as you are the US military killing muslims?
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No, OF COURSE NOt, I am angrier at Muslim terrorists not just because they are killing their brothers, for killing innocent people in the name of MY LORD and RELIGION - they should be ANNIHILATED.
Islam vs Muslim Terrorists [will be updated from time to time]

wackyiraqi said:

also, what were you fighting for before the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan?
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Animals' rights - true Islam...still doing so

*Peace and love*

Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

catstevens · Jun 7, 2006

Haditha killings said spread over 3 hours, work of small group of Marines
(AP)8 June 2006
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A small group of US Marines alleged to have killed up to two dozen Iraqi civilians conducted a house-to-house hunt that stretched over three hours, while other Marines in Haditha did not intervene, according to an Iraqi human rights investigator. The Associated Press interview of the activist is the most detailed account yet of Iraqi accusations that Marines went on a rampage after a comrade was killed by a bomb. Two separate US military investigations of the incident are under way.Thaer al-Hadithi, a member and spokesman for the Hammurabi human rights association, a Sunni Muslim group, recounted with the help of a satellite map when and where Iraqi civilians cowered and sometimes died.The case, which came to public attention two months ago because of a video released by the Hammurabi group, is threatening to further weaken popular support for the Iraq war in the United States and has tarnished the military’s image in Iraq and around the world.The military, after initially saying the Iraqi deaths were the result of the roadside bomb and a subsequent gunfight with insurgents, has not publicly released updated findings.But newer accounts, including details from briefings to members of Congress, have indicated at least some of the 24 deaths were the result of deliberate gunfire by a small group of Marines seeking revenge for the bombing, and that their actions were covered up by other Marines in the area who knew or suspected what had occurred. Iraq also has ordered its own probe of the killings, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki using unusually strong language to condemn them.Al-Hadithi’s account is mostly in line with other, eyewitness reports. He said he expanded his personal observations at the time with follow-up interviews of other witnesses who saw actions that he could not see from his house. He made repeated visits to the restive town to get information, he said.Hammurabi chairman Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani told the AP on Tuesday that his group was investigating other violations of Iraqi civil rights by Western forces in the mainly Sunni Arab provinces of Anbar and Salaheddin to the west and north of Baghdad. He said the group also was looking into violations by Iraqi security forces, militias and tribal clans.“We are also against terrorism,” he said.Al-Hadithi, 42, said he had been visiting his family in Haditha in western Iraq for a Muslim holiday when he was awakened on the morning of Nov. 19 by an explosion that he later learned to be a roadside bomb that hit a US convoy of four Humvees, killing one Marine.A native of the town, al-Hadithi was an administrator in Haditha’s main hospital before he took leave to work with Hammurabi, which was set up 16 months ago.According to US lawmakers briefed by Pentagon officials, the Marines, enraged by the death of a comrade, stormed nearby homes, killing occupants as well as the driver and four passengers of a taxi.Al-Hadithi offered new details on how that might have happened. He said the roadside bombing took place on a road about 100-150 meters from his family home.“There was an eerie silence after the explosion,” he said in Hammurabi’s Baghdad offices.“Then, we started to hear noises, soldiers shouting, that grew louder and louder,” said al-Hadithi, who spoke with a map of the town he downloaded from the Internet.The first gunshots were heard at around 7:30 a.m., he said, when the Marines moved into the family home of Abdul-Hamid Hassan Ali, a blind and elderly man in failing health. The house is just south of the spot where the roadside bomb went off, al-Hadithi said.Later, the Marines moved next door to the house of Younis Salem Rsayef and his family.“There was intense gunfire and I could see a fire at the Rsayef home,” said al-Hadithi, who watched from a window at his family home.One of the 24 bodies taken to Haditha’s main hospital late on Nov. 19 was charred, according to Walid Abdul-Hameed al-Obeidi, the hospital director. That was believed to be one of Rsayef’s sons, who witnesses said was burned to death after a grenade was thrown into his room.Ali and his wife Khamisa Toamah Ali were killed along with three of their sons, a daughter-in-law and a grandson, according to witnesses, hospital officials and human rights workers.In the second home, eight people were killed: Rsayef, his wife, her sister and five children.“You could tell that someone was killed by the gunfire and then the wailing and screaming of women seconds after the Americans left the house,” said al-Hadithi.He said the Marines stormed the house of Ayed Ahmed, the closest to al-Hadithi’s own home, at about 10:30 a.m. There, he said, four brothers, all of fighting age, were ordered inside a closet and shot dead. Everyone else was spared, al-Hadithi said.At about the same time, a man who stepped out of his nearby house to see what was happening at Ayed Ahmed’s home was shot and wounded, according to al-Hadithi. Aws Fahmi, 43, was left to bleed on the street for about two hours before a female neighbor dragged him to safety, al-Hadithi told the AP. Fahmi’s family was not able to take him to a hospital until two days later, al-Hadithi said. Although the shooting stopped, the security sweep, he said, lasted until about 4:30 p.m. and the Marines did not leave the town.Al-Hadithi said the Marines imposed a three-day closure on Haditha. They allowed relatives to go to the hospital the day after the killings to collect the bodies and bury them following negotiations with the Americans by the head of the local council, Imad Jawad Hamza. Only close relatives took part in the funeral, said al-Hadithi.Al-Hadithi said 14 people were detained on the day of the killings, including a woman who was soon released. Of the remaining 13, 11 have been freed and two remain in detention.He said five men were beaten by the Marines during their security sweep.Al-Hadithi’s account is generally consistent with the sequence of events given to the AP last week by a lawyer for relatives of victims.Some of the discrepancies in the accounts - like the number of Marines involved in the security sweep and estimates of how many of them went inside houses - could have been because they watched the day’s events from different homes.Both men watched from windows at their homes. Al-Hadithi said he had a clear view of two of the houses where killings allegedly took place. Khaled Salem Rsayef, the lawyer, said he could see the site of the roadside bomb as well as the first house stormed by the Marines.Rsayef has said he learned from conversations with relatives that the shooting was carried out by three or four Marines while about 20 more waited outside. Al-Hadithi said it was difficult to ascertain the number of those involved.However, he pointed out that since the shootings were not simultaneous, it’s possible they were the work of one group of Marines.About a month after the killings, al-Hadithi said, a Marine major refused a request by the victims’ families to offer a formal apology, arguing that the Iraqis were killed in the roadside bombing or caught in crossfire between the Marines and insurgents.The officer, whose name al-Hadithi said he could not remember, also warned them that the next time a roadside bomb hits a Marine convoy in Haditha he would order an airstrike to level anything within 500 yards.Al-Hadithi did not attend any of the meetings between victims’ families and the US military, but he based his account of what the Marines officer said on briefings from Hammurabi’s Haditha representative and conversations with the families.Al-Mashhadani, Hammurabi’s chairman, who lectures on economics at Baghdad’s al-Mustansiriyah University, said the organization was publicizing the Haditha incident to make sure it’s not repeated.“At the same time, we want the victims’ families to receive a fair compensation,” he said. Source
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*Peace and love*
Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

catstevens · Aug 2, 2006

Updated 8/2/2006 1:08 PM ET Source

WASHINGTON (AP) — Evidence collected on the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot the civilians, including unarmed women and children, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.
Agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service have completed their initial work on the incident last November, but may be asked to probe further as Marine Corps and Navy prosecutors review the evidence and determine whether to recommend criminal charges, according to two Pentagon officials who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

The decision on whether to press criminal charges ultimately will be made by the commander of the accused Marines' parent unit, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif. That currently is Lt. Gen. John Sattler, but he is scheduled to move to a Pentagon assignment soon; his successor will be Lt. Gen. James Mattis.

Investigators conducted a wide range of interviews but did not obtain permission to exhume the bodies of the 24 who were killed, one official said.

The case is one of several involving alleged unjustified killings of Iraqi civilians that have emerged this year, damaging the military's reputation for humane treatment of civilians and triggering calls by some Iraqi leaders to end the arrangement under which U.S. troops are immune from prosecution by Iraqi authorities.

The Marines initially reported after the Nov. 19, 2005 killings at Haditha that 15 Iraqi civilians had been killed by a makeshift roadside bomb and in crossfire between Marines and insurgent attackers. Based on accounts from survivors and human rights groups, Time magazine first reported in March that the killings were deliberate acts by the Marines.

A criminal investigation was then ordered by the top Marine commander in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer.

A parallel investigation is examining whether officers in the Marines' chain of command tried to cover up the events. The probe, which has not been made public, faults some officers for failing to pursue obvious discrepancies in the initial reports about what happened in Haditha and for not launching an early investigation.

Public attention on the Haditha case grew after Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a former Marine, asserted publicly on May 17 that he had learned from Marine Corps officials that innocent Iraqis had been killed "in cold blood."

Lawyers for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, one of the Marines under investigation, argued in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court that Murtha falsely accused Wuterich of murder and war crimes. The suit maintains that Pentagon officials "who have briefed or leaked information to Mr. Murtha deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information" and that the congressman subsequently "has made repeated statements .... that are defamatory" to Wuterich and his fellow Marines.

Among the other cases of alleged deliberate killings of Iraqi civilians, seven Marines and one Navy corpsman have been charged with premeditated murder and other criminal acts in connection with the killing of an Iraqi man in Hamdania on April 26. Also, five soldiers and a former soldier have been charged in the March 12 rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman and the killings of her relatives in Mahmoudiya.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

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Allah knows best
*Peace and love*
Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

LickHERish · Aug 2, 2006

And still not a single high-ranking military officer (or more rightly the CHiefs of Staff and their corrupt administration taskmasters) have been hauled out in chains.

Just more of the same old same old from US theatres of war; let the military "investigate" itself (heck lets let the mafia "investigate itself from now on as well) and expect nothing other than a handful of lacky patsies and a parade of self-congratulatory media PR.

What an utter load of bollocks.

catstevens · Aug 3, 2006

LickHERish

LickHERish said:

let the military "investigate" itself (heck lets let the mafia "investigate itself from now on as well)
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The Terrorist (Bush) wants to annihilate the terrorists, this is very stupid as well.
*Peace and love*
Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

catstevens · Aug 18, 2006

Update

Marines May Have Excised Evidence on 24 Iraqi Deaths
By DAVID S. CLOUD Source
Published: August 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — A high-level military investigation into the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha last November has uncovered instances in which American marines involved in the episode appear to have destroyed or withheld evidence, according to two Defense Department officials briefed on the case. The investigation found that an official company logbook of the unit involved had been tampered with and that an incriminating video taken by an aerial drone the day of the killings was not given to investigators until Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, intervened, the officials said.
Those findings, contained in a long report that was completed last month but not made public, go beyond what has been previously reported about the case. It has been known that marines who carried out the killings made misleading statements to investigators and that senior officers were criticized for not being more aggressive in investigating the case, in which most or all of the Iraqis who were killed were civilians. But this is the first time details about possible concealment or destruction of evidence have been disclosed. The report’s findings have been sent to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is investigating members of the unit involved in the killings, as well as higher-ranking officers in the Second Marine Division. No charges have been brought yet.

The report, based on an investigation by Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell of the Army, does not directly accuse marines of attempting a cover-up, but it does describe several suspicious incidents, according to the Defense Department officials.
It says that the logbook, which was meant to be a daily record of major incidents the marines’ company encountered, had all the pages missing for Nov. 19, the day of the killings, and that those portions had not been found, the officials said. No conclusions are drawn about who may have tampered with the log. But the report says that Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the leader of the squad involved in the killings, was on duty at the unit’s operations center, where the logbook was kept, shortly after the killings occurred, the officials said. Neal A. Puckett, a lawyer for Sergeant Wuterich, was unavailable to comment. Investigators were also initially told by Marine officers that videotape taken by the drone was not available, one of the officials said. The officials added that the marines produced the tape only after General Bargewell had completed his inquiry and they had been asked again to produce it by General Chiarelli.

The report has been closely held within the Defense Department, and the officials who agreed to discuss it did so because they said they thought it should receive wider public attention. They agreed to speak only if their names were not published because they had not been authorized by superiors to discuss its contents.

The deaths occurred outside the town of Haditha after a three-vehicle convoy of marines was hit by a roadside bomb, killing a lance corporal. The squad then began going through houses nearby, killing Iraqis found inside in what defense lawyers have said was a justifiable use of lethal force by marines who believed they were under concerted attack by insurgents.

The Marine Corps issued a press release the next day saying that 15 of the civilian deaths had been caused by the bomb explosion. But several officers in the unit have said they knew even then that marines had killed all 24 of the dead Iraqis, 9 of whom were suspected insurgents.

Since then, the idea that any of the victims were insurgents has been challenged, both by Iraqi survivors and by some American military officials familiar with the case, noting that the victims included 10 women and children and an elderly man in a wheelchair. They have said that evidence suggests that the marines overreacted after the death of their fellow marine and shot the civilians in cold blood.

Marines have told investigators that at least one Iraqi who was shot was brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle. But no records were found that such a weapon was recovered at the scene and turned in to the unit’s headquarters, as regulations require, the officials said.

Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps spokesman, said: “The Marine Corps is committed to a full and thorough investigation of the events that occurred at Haditha on Nov. 19, and the actions that followed that may have contributed to any improper reporting. If allegations of wrongdoing are substantiated, the Marine Corps will pursue appropriate legal and administrative actions.”

The decision about whether to take disciplinary action will be made by Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of Marine Corps units in the Middle East, based on his review of both the Bargewell report and the results of the criminal investigation still under way.

In addition to faulting officers in the Second Marine Division for not aggressively investigating the Haditha killings, the Bargewell report said the commanders had created a climate that minimized the importance of Iraqi lives, particularly in Haditha, where insurgent attacks were rampant, the officials said.“In their eyes, they didn’t believe anyone was innocent,” said one of the officials, describing the attitude of the marines in the unit toward Iraqis. “Either you were an active participant, or you were complicit.”

Two days after the Haditha killings, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, then the division commander, asked his staff for a briefing on what had happened, the officials said. General Huck later told investigators that he had ordered the briefing because he was concerned about the reports of civilian casualties, one of the officials said.

But the briefing provided to General Huck contained no mention of the civilian casualties, the investigators learned. Instead, according to one of the officials, it dealt almost entirely with the roadside bomb attack and other insurgent attacks on marines in Haditha throughout the day.

General Huck and other officers from the Second Marine Division have been ordered not to talk about the case, and a telephone call to the unit was referred to Colonel Gibson, the Marine spokesman. But some senior officers have previously defended their response to the killings, saying there was no reason to doubt the account provided by enlisted marines at the time, contending that civilian killings were an unfortunate but accidental byproduct of their pursuit of insurgents. (*Stevens: collective random punishment! and killing)

The involved marines’ battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, and their company commander, Capt. Lucas McConnell, told investigators that they had not reviewed the scene within the houses after the killings, despite the high number of civilian casualties, one of the officials said. Colonel Chessani was relieved of his command in April; Marine officials would not say whether the Haditha case was involved in the decision but said there were several reasons. The video taken by the overhead drone was very limited, according to one of the officials. The aircraft was not flying over the site until after the bomb attack, so it only captured the aftermath. Even so, the video appears to contradict statements by marines about what occurred, the officials said. In particular, it has raised doubts about a claim by enlisted marines that five Iraqis were shot as they were running away after the roadside bombing. The officials said the video showed the bodies of the five Iraqis on the ground close to the car that they had been riding in, the officials said. In one case, the video appears to show one body stacked on top of another, which the officials said was inconsistent with the account that the men had been shot while fleeing.

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Allah knows best
*Peace and love*
Yours Sincerely,
Cat Stevens

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