Posted on 05/29/2006 5:33:18 AM PDT by smoothsailing
Copyright 2006 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.
ABC News Transcripts
SHOW: This Week 10:31 AM EST ABC
May 28, 2006 Sunday
HEADLINER;
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (WASHINGTON, DC USA)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Good morning, everyone. We begin with that investigation into possible war crimes by US Marines in Iraq. Two separate military panels are poised to conclude that on November 19th, 2005, after a roadside bomb hit a convoy of Marines in the town of Haditha, killing Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, several Marines went on a rampage, killing 24 Iraqis, all but one unarmed including children and the women trying to protect them. Investigators are also compiling evidence of a cover-up. And Pentagon officials tell ABC News that at least seven Marines could face criminal charges, ranging from dereliction of duty to murder. Key members of the House and Senate have been briefed on the investigation, including our headliners, Senator John Warner and Congressman John Murtha, who is our first guest. Welcome back, sir.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Thanks George, you've come a long ways.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Thank you, sir. You have been briefed several times on this incident on November 19th. And you've said that the evidence shows that Marines killed innocent civilians in cold blood. From what you know, what happened?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Well, there's no question in my mind, what happened was an IED went off. And you gotta put this into perspective. Every day they go out, an IED goes off. And I sanitize when I say IED. I'm talking about explosive device goes off. It doesn't - hurts somebody one day, the next day it kills somebody. The next day, it maims somebody. And I see those people in the hospital all the time. So the pressure builds every time they go out. So this particular case, an IED exploded. It killed one Marine. And then a taxi drives up. When the taxi comes up, there's four or five people in it. And they shoot; shoot those four or five people, unarmed. And then they go on a rampage throughout the houses and kill people. One woman, as I understand it, in talking to the officials in the Marine Corps, was bending over a child pleading for mercy and they shot her in cold blood. That's the thing that's so disturbing. And even more disturbing is the fact that, we know the Iraqis knew about it because they made payments to the Iraqis for accidental deaths or for salacious deaths, whatever you want to call it. And then in addition to that, they had - there has to have been a cover-up of this thing.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) So you believe there was a cover-up?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
No question about it. First of all, they first tried to say that the IED is what killed these people. The next day, there was a team out there investigating, as they always do. And then nothing happens. Nobody hears about it. They don't tell anybody. Until March, when "Time" magazine broke the news, nobody realized or recognized what happened. These kind of things have to be brought out immediately. Because, the Marines, if they did get away with it, then other Marines would say, well, I'll do the same thing. As a matter of fact, we have another incident which is very similar to this, George. An incident where a Marine - or some Marines pulled somebody out of a house, put them next to an IED thing, fired some AKAs so they'd have cartridges there. And then tried to cover that up.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) April 26th in Hamindiyah. And several Marines have been put into custody for that, as well. Let me stay on Haditha for a second. We've read that there is evidence, photographic evidence of what happened. Is that true?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Yeah, that's exactly true. And it's a combination of the people that did the investigation and Iraqis took - took the evidence itself. There's no question about what happened. And the problem is, who covered it up? And why did they cover it up? Why did they wait so long? It's been six months since this happened. It's very simple. They went out the next day, they knew there was something wrong. Two or three days later, they decided that this - these people were murdered.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) So who do you blame for the cover-up?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Well, that's what we're trying to figure out. We don't know how far it goes. I mean, it goes right up the chain of command. Right up to General Pace. When did he know about it? Did he order the cover-up? Who ordered the cover-up? I'm sure he didn't. But what - who said, we're not going to publicize this thing? We're not even going to investigate it. Until March, there was no serious investigation. There was an investigation right afterwards but then it was stifled. So we need to know what happened. And the point is, the pressure, the tremendous pressure on these guys, every day when they go out with an explosive device. Second is, the Marines knew about it. And so, this gets around the Marine community, as I'd heard rumors about it. Then, third is, the Iraqis all knew about it. You can bet.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Three commanders have been relieved to their duty. Is that connected to this?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Well, they tell me it's not connected. They tell me this is dereliction of duty. But we cannot allow something like this to fester. We can't allow it to happen. They've got to put the blame where it goes and they gotta get this over with. They gotta make sure that - we're celebrating Memorial Day. And on Memorial Day, the freedom and democracy of this great country and the people that fight for it. And we memorialize the people that have died and the ones that have fought for the country and the family. And here we are with something like this. We gotta make sure the world knows this is not something that our troops do. We can't – we can't allow something like this.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) And are you absolutely sure, though, that this wasn't something that happened in the fog of war? It was confusing. That they thought there was fire coming from the houses and they thought they were responding to enemy fire from insurgents?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
The reports that I have, from the highest level, no firing at all. No interaction. No, no military action at all in this particular incident. It was an explosive device which killed a Marine. From then on, it was purely shooting people inside the houses and a taxi.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) "Time" magazine reports this morning they also have a photo that shows a Marine - it was taken by a Marine with a cell phone, showing Iraqis kneeling before they were shot. Is that true?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Well, I hear that one of them was even in English asking for mercy. And so I haven't heard that. I saw that in "Time" magazine, sitting on your table out there. That's the first I knew about that. But, but I've heard rumors like that the whole time. The point is, the Marines knew about it all this time. Somebody in the chain of command decided not to allow this to happen. How far up it went, I don't know. But the worst thing is, the Iraqis all knew about it. And then they made payments to the families. And that doesn't happen at the lowest level. That happens at the highest level before they make a decision to make payments to the families.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) You know, a Marine who was accused last year of committing war crimes, Lieutenant Alario Pantano, has written a letter to "The Washington Post" this morning saying you're rushing to judgment. And saying, that, as he wrote in 'The Post," 'members of the US military serving in Iraq need more than Mr. Murtha's pseudo-sympathy. Let the courts decide if these Marines are guilty. They haven't even been charged with a crime yet, so it's premature to presume their guilt unless that presumption is tied to a political motive."
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
George, I can understand - anybody that's been over there, I can understand anybody that feels that you're denigrating the troops. What I'm saying is, there's nobody done more for the troops than I have. Nobody's worked harder than I have, in trying to make sure the troops have what they need. But I will not excuse murder. And this is what happened. There's no question in my mind about it. This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterwards. And it should have been made public. And people should - should've been held responsible for it.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) The commandant of the Marine Corps, Michael Hagee, has been in Iraq for the last several days talking to the troops. Not about this incident, he says, but reminding them of their duties under the laws of war. Do you believe the Marine Corps is doing what it takes to fix whatever happened here?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Yeah. And you got to remember that General Hagee is not in the chain of command in this particular incident. Because this goes through the chain of command up to General Casey, to General Abizaid and then to General Pace. So, technically he's in the chain of command when it comes to the punishment. Now, he's acting very quickly now, going out and telling the troops 'we cannot do something like this." It erodes - this is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people. We can't win this militarily. It's now got to be a political victory. And we're set back every time something like this happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Well, we've already read that al Qaeda in Iraq is sending video to mosques in Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, Syria, trying to recruit new insurgents to Iraq. How worried are you - how much damage do you believe this is going to do to the US relations with the Muslim world? And will it become a recruiting tool for terrorists?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
George, we've already lost the direction in this war. We've diverted ourselves from the real war against terrorism into Iraq. We made a mistake by going to Iraq. I've said this over and over again. And we can't win it militarily. This is the problem we have. Now, the political successes that they talk about are rhetorical successes, almost. Sure, we've got a government formed now, but the two biggest ministries aren't completed, interior and defense. So when you look at this whole thing, you say to yourself, what progress has been made? All the type things I measure, sewage all over the streets, water, only one hour a day do they get water. They have to turn their water on in the middle of the night. Electricity below pre-war level. Oil production below pre-war level. That's how I measure success. And only the Iraqis should handle this. This is the thing I've been saying. Our American troops are caught in a civil war. I understand what happened. I don't excuse what happened. But I understand what happened.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) More than a million US service people have served in Iraq honorably. Are you convinced that this is an isolated incident?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Well, I hope it's an isolated incident. I would expect we'll find out that there are very few incidents like this. But when you get pressure that they're under every day. When they go out, and there's an explosion and it doesn't kill somebody, explosion then kills somebody, explosion blows somebody apart, and I see the results of those explosions in the hospital when I go out there every week. You begin to recognize that - that the pressure could cause it. But we have so few people - less than 1% of the people in the United States involved in this war. And so they go back over and over again. Some have been back four and five times. I got a letter from a 10-year-old child. And the child says to me, 'I appreciate the support of your troops. Don't let my dad be deployed for the fourth time." And another woman sitting beside her son who's been in the hospital for over a year, hit by an IED, his brain shaken. He's been in a coma. He can only move his eyeballs. This is the type thing that I see that we can't - we don't need to put up with. It's the Iraqis can only settle this themselves. They don't want our advice, Sistani didn't even open a letter to the President. So, on Memorial Day, we want to be confident that most of our soldiers would not do something like this. It's an isolated incident. But that's why it's so important to get it out in the open and get the punishment at the appropriate places.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Congressman Murtha, we have to end it there. Thank you very much.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (DEMOCRAT
Nice talking to you, George.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) The chairman of the armed services committee, John Warner is next.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) And later, Tony Orlando on his ties to veterans.
TONY ORLANDO (SINGER)
The yellow ribbon is a symbol of hope, love and homecoming. It means I'm coming home, I've done my time.
ANNOUNCER
'This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, brought to you by...
COMMERCIAL BREAK Copyright © 2006 LexisNexis
See the post above. We’re expecting a decision from Gen Mattis this week and I hope we can launch a bit of a campaign. I’m not posting the piece at the link until there’s word from Camp Pen.
The piece looks good. The transcript on Stephanopoulis is simply breathtaking. It still stuns me that a congressman or military spokesman didn’t immediately put Murtha in his place. He pulled this stunt on Memorial Day.
Yes, the timing was just deplorable, and the lack of response from PAOs was even worse.
The Marines fight by land, air and sea—but not in the media. In this day and age, the real battle, during an extended conflict, will be at home. The military needs to join the 21st century.
Indeed, we should. looks good.
Red - The piece is awesome! I look forward to taking this asshat to the woodshed. If Diana won’t run against Murtha again, maybe we could convince Darryl to take him on???
LOL! Whoever runs against Murtha in 08 better be prepared to tell the voters in PA-12 just how much pork he or she will bring home. Appeals to patriotism were lost on voters in 06.
Excellent piece, Red. It’s hard hitting and correct in every detail. Good job!
Great job! I’m going to have some video to watch.
Please let me know if you spot anything else worth preserving.
Hey, smooth! Thought you should know that this old thread of yours is getting some new action.
See above. I added these to the page. You can pick and choose, but I think it’s important to remind people just how outrageous Murtha was.
Yes, I can use all these I think, I will work on it next!!
Thanks!!
I also made a few corrections / changes in the text of the piece. It’s stronger now.
Good job putting this together, Red. It shows what a vile old fool Murtha is.
Those are great catches, Red. He claims Marine officials told him that one woman was bending over a child and pleading for mercy. Hmmm...I think Murtha was getting his info from reporters. Whether it was Tim McGirk, or some of the others who interviewed the Iraqis. This stuff sounds like it was straight from the Iraqi version of events early on and what they told reporters. Plain and simple.
“There’s no question in my mind”....uh-huh. Well that doesn’t say a lot for his mind.
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