Posted on 05/15/2007 2:26:57 PM PDT by RedRover
Gen. Mattis has the final say, regardless of the IOs recommendation.
I suspect that no determination will be made until after the Lt Col Chessani hearing in a couple weeks. Fingers crossed that I’m wrong and that Capt Stone will be cleared very soon.
Thanks Red. I will check the SDUT out.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6636629,00.html
Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury said it was irrelevant that Stone’s superiors saw no need for an investigation.
The article doesn’t say so, but he’s one of the prosecuters.
I believe his carrer is over,no matter what the court says.
100 percent for sure! He will be lucky to get out of the corps with an honorable discharge. Life will be difficult for him for a while.
CAMP PENDLETON -- Marine Capt. Randy Stone yesterday argued for his military career, and freedom, at the climax of a weeklong hearing into accusations that he failed to examine the deaths of two-dozen people in Haditha, Iraq.
In a Camp Pendleton courtroom, Stone addressed the investigating officer who will recommend whether he should face trial. Stone sought the chance to carry on a legacy of military service that dates back to his grandfathers at Iwo Jima during World War II.
"I have faith in this community and the military justice system to which I have devoted the past four years," said Stone, who was a legal officer for the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton at the time of the killings.
Stone and three other officers are accused of dereliction of duty for allegedly not investigating the Nov. 19, 2005, incident in Haditha.
In addition, three enlisted Marines face charges of murder for allegedly killing the Iraqis after a roadside bomb claimed one of their own. The defendants' attorneys have said the deaths were an unavoidable part of combat against suspected insurgents.
If Stone does proceed to court-martial and is convicted, he would face two years in prison, dismissal from the service and almost-certain disbarment.
During his 25-minute statement, Stone explained his decision not to investigate the Haditha killings by members of the battalion's Kilo Company. At the time, he was responsible for handling investigations and training Marines in the military's laws of war.
Stone said he received almost zero training for his job before joining the battalion in Iraq in September 2005.
"Investigations were not required for Iraqi civilian deaths that resulted from bona fide troops-in-contact situations where U.S. forces were engaged by insurgent forces," said Stone, 34.
Stone said that he had no information suggesting a criminal act had taken place and that senior Marines didn't ask questions about the incident.
"I have wondered on so many occasions how this went so wrong when I always had the best of intentions," Stone said. "I have never lied and have worked at all times to assist as best I could to shed light on what I knew and when I knew it."
Stone's comments came before closing arguments by defense attorney Charles Gittins and Marine prosecutor Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury. Atterbury argued that Stone knew or had reason to believe the deaths of women and children in Haditha were potential violations of the military's rules of engagement.
"The evidence suggests that Captain Stone did not do anything in response," Atterbury said.
Gittins described the prosecution's case as an "illusion of the truth." He went on to assert how several higher-ranking commanders were more responsible for not investigating the Haditha incident versus Stone.
"The whole thing stinks," Gittins said. "You are going to pick the least experienced guy and hold him responsible?"
Abu Bin Murtha has destroyed these young mens lives with his lies.
Yep. It is ashame to see that Murtha did not get any negative from it. He made his congressional seat back with a pretty good majority. These guys are going to pay for it for the rest of their lives. Sad how life deals with things.
Fortunately in our justice system the prosecution has to produce evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone, people are not convicted on the mere opinion of a prosecutor.
From what has been reported about the actual witness testimony the evidence doesn't even approach Capt. Stone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
I’m with you, jaz. I’m eager to see what kind of wrap-up is in today’s NC Times.
That's a good point. I wonder if it's possible? But the way Bush has been acting lately, he probably wouldn't get involved.
Carolyn
Correct. Irrelevant that superiors saw no need for an investigation.
What kind of category would that kind of thinking fall into?
My comment was based on a book that traces the history of the Judge Advocate General Corps since the period following the Civil War. I’ve got it somewhere in my library and will look for a more definitive reference. The additional duty was, as I recall since I was not a JAG during my career, primarily for administrative board representation, voter registration and maybe even tax assistance. Operational commanders have always had a JAG on board, that’s why they have the title of Staff Judge Advocate at command levels.
“Investigations were not required for Iraqi civilian deaths that resulted from bona fide troops-in-contact situations where U.S. forces were engaged by insurgent forces,” said Stone, 34.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The evidence suggests that Captain Stone did not do anything in response,” Atterbury said.
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Am I in an alternate universe?
Not at battalion level. I'm familiar with the TOE's of the subordinate battalion equivalent units in heavy divisions in the 1970's and no SJA's were assigned and no "legal officers" per se were on the battalion staff. You're thinking of a much higher level.
By PAUL von DICKHEAD
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 16 — On its face, the military hearing that ended here Tuesday concerned just one issue: whether an inexperienced Marine lawyer’s failure to question the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha 18 months ago constituted a criminal dereliction of duty.
In fact, the seven-day hearing opened a rare public window onto a debate about how the Marine Corps is fighting in Iraq against a ruthless insurgency that uses civilians as cover and disregards the laws of conflict taught in the United States.
The presiding officer, Maj. Thomas McCann, seemed disconcerted about the testimony he had heard from several officers, from the general in charge of the Second Marine Division down to the first lieutenant whose men killed 24 civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.
Several officers described civilian deaths as unfortunate but justifiable if they occurred during combat.
On Friday Major McCann, an experienced Marine lawyer, interjected some unsettling questions about how many civilian deaths it would take to constitute a violation of military regulations.
Alluding to Haditha, he asked, "At what point do we have to scratch our heads that we killed a lot more civilians than enemy?"
Because so many witnesses had testified that civilian deaths from "combat action" need not be investigated, Major McCann said, "I’m trying to figure out what authority they are citing.
The witness testifying then, Col. Keith R. Anderson, a senior Marine Reserve lawyer now with the Department of the Navy, delivered a succinct and telling answer. "There is no authority," he said. "I think it’s just a mind-set."
The two officers had tackled some of the same issues that had troubled military investigators, including Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell of the Army, who bluntly criticized Marine commanders in a secret report last year for tolerating large numbers of civilian deaths in combat operations.
blah blah blah
Testimony in the hearing last week, convened to determine whether Capt. Randy W. Stone had violated military laws for not investigating the civilian deaths, bore out many of General Bargewell’s main findings.
Maj. Carroll J. Connolly, for instance, a lawyer for the Marine regiment commanded then by Col. Stephen W. Davis, said he saw no need to investigate the civilian deaths in Haditha because they had come during combat with enemy fighters.
When Major McCann, the investigating officer, asked what the legal basis was for drawing that conclusion, Major Connolly, who was granted immunity from prosecution for his testimony, said he could not think of any.
Many legal experts said the killing of women and children required investigation regardless of whether it occurred in combat.
"The best course of action would be to immediately do some sort of investigation to see how these people came to be dead," said H. Wayne Elliott, former chief of the international law division of the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Elliott, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, also pointed out that investigating the Haditha killings would be required to comply with Marine commanders' requirements to report significant civilian deaths up the chain of command.
"How can you report it," he asked, "if you don’t see an obligation to investigate it in the first place?"
It was questions like those that Major McCann repeatedly seemed to grapple with.
At another point in the proceeding last week, he questioned a Marine battalion intelligence officer, Capt. Jeffrey S. Dinsmore, who had inspected the scene at Haditha.
"If there had been 150 bodies N.K.I.A. that day," Major McCann asked, using the military's abbreviation for noncombatants killed in action, "where would we be, in your mind?"
Captain Dinsmore, a 21-year veteran testifying by telephone from Iraq, offered a relatively impassioned response. He said the Iraq war rarely provided clear lines between combatants and civilians. The marines in Haditha that day, under small-arms fire in a profoundly hostile Sunni Arab region, could either abide by the laws of war and risk being killed, or could take aggressive steps to protect themselves and their squad members, and risk committing a war crime.
The reality is then and the reality is now, you let loose marines in a T.I.C. against a hostile situation, taking small-arms fire,†Captain Dinsmore said, referring to "troops in contact," "they don’t have the training nor do they have the presence of mind to differentiate between civilians and insurgents. It stinks."
Military and civilian lawyers said the Marine Corps was unlikely to charge the division commander, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, with a crime related to Haditha, despite the general’s testimony last week that he knew about the deaths hours after they occurred but did not ask for follow-up reporting.
But given the widespread misperception throughout his division's ranks that civilian deaths were not cause for great concern, military justice experts said that prosecutors could have charged other officers as well.
Gary D. Solis, who teaches the laws of war at Georgetown University, said that General Huck could have been charged but that "I can see the argument against it as well." Mr. Solis also said that the general's chief of staff, a colonel, should be reprimanded for not telling the general about questions from a Time magazine reporter that amounted to a war crime allegation.
Instead of being charged with dereliction charges similar to those facing Captain Stone, three other Marine officers — Lieutenant Kallop, the Third Platoon leader; Maj. Dana G. Hyatt, a battalion civil affairs officer; and Major Connolly — were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony against Captain Stone.
Sorry for the weird characters above. They should be quotation marks or apostrophes.
Thanks for the post, Red. Sounds like McCann had many questions about a squad reacting to enemy fire, I wonder if he’d ask the same questions of a spotter and pilot if the buildings had been taken out with an airstrike.
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