Lawmaker: Marines Killed Iraqis "In Cold Blood"
By Jim Miklaszewski and Mike Viqueira
NBC News
Wednesday 17 May 2006
Navy conducting war crimes probe into November violence in Haditha.
Washington - A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.
From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.
One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. "The Americans came into the room where my father was praying," she said, "and shot him."
On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.
Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.
A videotape taken by an Iraqi showed the aftermath of the alleged attack: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.
The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.
On Nov. 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed eight insurgents, he said.
U.S. military officials later confirmed that the version of events was wrong.
Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Military officials say Marine Corp photos taken immediately after the incident show many of the victims were shot at close range, in the head and chest, execution-style. One photo shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead, said the officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because the investigation hasn't been completed.
One military official says it appears the civilians were deliberately killed by the Marines, who were outraged at the death of their fellow Marine.
"This one is ugly," one official told NBC News.
Three Marine officers - commanders in Haditha - have been relieved of duty, and at least 12 Marines in all are under investigation for what would be the worst single incident involving the deliberate killing of civilians by U.S. military in Iraq.
The Marine Corps issued a statement in response to Murtha's remarks:
"There is an ongoing investigation; therefore, any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process. 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 held the news conference to mark six months since his initial call for "redeployment" of U.S. forces from Iraq.
He said U.S. forces were under undue pressure in Iraq because of poor planning and allocation of resources by the Bush administration.
LINK
Marines murdered Iraqis civilians
-
Barbara Fitzpatrick
- Posts: 2232
- Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:55 am
- Designate the number of cents in half a dollar: 0
Being a Vietnam era person, I tend to call it the Vietnam syndrome, but it's been around for a long time. The Romans were doing it in "Gallia" in 50BC. Put soldiers in foreign territory where they don't know the language or customs and literally cannot tell friend from foe or "resistance" from compliance and then shoot at them on a frequent but irregular basis and they will start killing who or whatever is closest following an attack, especially if some of their own group were killed in that attack. That doesn't make it right. It does explain the mechanism - and the means of circumventing it - get the troops out of harm's way before they crack. (Not sending them out on any trumped-up excuse for a war in the first place is, apparently, too much for this administration to handle, even with all the historical warnings. But then, most Americans prefer the Hollywood version of history.)
Barbara Fitzpatrick
-
Hogeye
- Posts: 1047
- Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:33 pm
- Designate the number of cents in half a dollar: 0
- Contact:
The paper today said it was more like 20-30 civilians murdered in cold blood, not "just" 15 like earlier reports.
"May the the last king be strangled in the guts of the last priest." - Diderot
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty. - Ingersoll
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty. - Ingersoll
-
Barbara Fitzpatrick
- Posts: 2232
- Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:55 am
- Designate the number of cents in half a dollar: 0
It's more like multiple events, with varying numbers of dead innocents, than just one. It's nothing unusual - not right, just not unusual. Ever heard of Wounded Knee or Sherman's March to the Sea? It's also the reason why the suicide rate among military personnel in Iraq is over 4 times the "normal" rate. These guys need to come home - and get counseling. The ones who don't kill themselves will have problems the rest of their lives, and may become dangerous to others, as well.
Barbara Fitzpatrick
-
Dardedar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 8193
- Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2006 9:18 pm
- Designate the number of cents in half a dollar: 0
- Location: Fayetteville
- Contact:
DAR
They have been covering this up for about six months:
****
WASHINGTON - The fallout from the killing of as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians by Marines could undermine U.S. efforts in
Iraq more than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal did, a lawmaker who is a prominent war critic said Sunday.
The shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, were covered up, said Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa.
"Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Murtha said on "This Week" on ABC. "We don't know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command."
A bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Murtha, who has been briefed by officials.
Murtha said high-level reports he received indicated that no one fired upon the Marines or that there was any military action against the U.S. forces after the initial explosion. Yet the deaths were not seriously investigated until March because an early probe was stifled within days of the incident, he said.
"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened," Murtha said. "This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterward and it should have been made public and people should have been held responsible for it."
Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman, told The Associated Press that the investigation was ongoing and he would have no comment.
Murtha, a former Marine and a prominent critic of Bush administration policies in Iraq, repeated his view that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily and needs political solutions, which he said were damaged by such incidents involving the U.S.
"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people," he said. "And we're set back every time something like this happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib."
The U.S. effort to win over Iraqis and others in the Arab world by fostering a democratic government was severely damaged when it was revealed that U.S. military personnel had abused and humiliated people held at Abu Ghraib, a prison outside of Baghdad.
The incident at Haditha has sparked two investigations — one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up.
The second, noncriminal investigation is examining whether Marines sought to cover up what actually occurred that day and, in doing so, lied about having killed civilians without justification. The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press on Friday that evidence gathered so far strongly indicated that the Haditha killings were unjustified.
Early this year, a videotape of the aftermath of the incident, showing the bodies of women and children, was obtained by Time magazine and Arab television stations. The military then undertook another investigation.
Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would hold hearings on the killings but cautioned against reaching conclusions until the military concluded its investigation.
"There is this serious question, however, of what happened and when it happened and what was the immediate reaction of the senior officers in the Marine Corps when they began to gain knowledge of it," Warner said.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into the shootings is not expected to be completed earlier than in June. Whether violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including murder, would be pursued would be determined by a senior Marine commander in Iraq.
The NCIS also is conducting a criminal investigation into another incident, the death of an Iraqi civilian on April 26, involving Marines in Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad.
LINK
.
They have been covering this up for about six months:
****
WASHINGTON - The fallout from the killing of as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians by Marines could undermine U.S. efforts in
Iraq more than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal did, a lawmaker who is a prominent war critic said Sunday.
The shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, were covered up, said Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa.
"Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Murtha said on "This Week" on ABC. "We don't know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command."
A bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Murtha, who has been briefed by officials.
Murtha said high-level reports he received indicated that no one fired upon the Marines or that there was any military action against the U.S. forces after the initial explosion. Yet the deaths were not seriously investigated until March because an early probe was stifled within days of the incident, he said.
"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened," Murtha said. "This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterward and it should have been made public and people should have been held responsible for it."
Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman, told The Associated Press that the investigation was ongoing and he would have no comment.
Murtha, a former Marine and a prominent critic of Bush administration policies in Iraq, repeated his view that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily and needs political solutions, which he said were damaged by such incidents involving the U.S.
"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people," he said. "And we're set back every time something like this happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib."
The U.S. effort to win over Iraqis and others in the Arab world by fostering a democratic government was severely damaged when it was revealed that U.S. military personnel had abused and humiliated people held at Abu Ghraib, a prison outside of Baghdad.
The incident at Haditha has sparked two investigations — one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up.
The second, noncriminal investigation is examining whether Marines sought to cover up what actually occurred that day and, in doing so, lied about having killed civilians without justification. The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press on Friday that evidence gathered so far strongly indicated that the Haditha killings were unjustified.
Early this year, a videotape of the aftermath of the incident, showing the bodies of women and children, was obtained by Time magazine and Arab television stations. The military then undertook another investigation.
Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would hold hearings on the killings but cautioned against reaching conclusions until the military concluded its investigation.
"There is this serious question, however, of what happened and when it happened and what was the immediate reaction of the senior officers in the Marine Corps when they began to gain knowledge of it," Warner said.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into the shootings is not expected to be completed earlier than in June. Whether violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including murder, would be pursued would be determined by a senior Marine commander in Iraq.
The NCIS also is conducting a criminal investigation into another incident, the death of an Iraqi civilian on April 26, involving Marines in Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad.
LINK
.
-
Barbara Fitzpatrick
- Posts: 2232
- Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:55 am
- Designate the number of cents in half a dollar: 0