Charges against Haditha defendant questioned [Lt Grayson]

North County Times ^ | November 18, 2007 | Mark Walker

[RS]

Just looked over the last few posts ...

Did you jump to the conclusion that she TOOK the photos, rather then having them sent to her or that she downloaded them ?

... I didn’t

[2CAVTrooper]

“I wonder if somebody up the food chain who wants to throw some Marines under the bus - - for the good of the Corps, of course - - is dangling a 4th star in front of Helland?”

You’re not saying that a certain member of congress who happens to be an ex Marine would “pull some strings” in an attempt to bribe the General now are you?

[Girlene]

I don't think we know (from any reporting, thus far), if any of the unnumbered (Laughner's) or numbered photos were kept and given to NCIS. The reporting makes it sound like NCIS recreated pulled them from memory drives, but I don't really know that.

I’ve never thought a good defense was “ bu..but.. he was doing it too ! “

Well, the hearing officer, Col. Robert Stahlman, may not agree with you. From this article,

..."Col. Robert Stahlman, said that if 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson was guilty of dereliction of duty for not ordering an investigation into the slayings, numerous other members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment command staff should have been similarly charged.

"I would have expected everyone in that battalion would have been charged and obviously that didn't happen," Stahlman said. ".....

Now, RS, I'm not going to argue that "but, he was doing it, too", is not a good defense for heinous crimes. I don't think I posited that argument. I asked this legitimate question,

So if someone else had another “official” set with the numbering identification why isn’t someone else charged with destroying those? Why charge just Grayson for ordering Laughner to get rid of his set once they had no more intelligence value?

You made the jump to ----- that's not a good defense.

[RS]

“So if someone else had another “official” set with the numbering identification why isn’t someone else charged with destroying those? “

Don’t follow you - we don’t know that another set was destroyed ... in fact, besides the set that brione(?) says he erased from his camera after figuring that they had been downloaded ( we don’t know if they actually were downloaded OR erased ) noone is saying they destroyed any ... are they ?

Grayson is charged with ordering them destroyed - don’t know if they actually were ...

“Why charge JUST Grayson” sounds like an attempt to plead selective prosecution - sorry if I took it wrong.

[freema]

Actually, I was only address it from the suggestion that she were a Marine with those pictures. Now, if she weren’t a Marine, but had them on her cell phone, yeah, I’d be asking some questions.

But, what the hey. I’ve looked at plenty of those dead insurgent pictures. They’re all over the internet. You see, I live and breathe and eat with Marines and more-and it would be just damn ignorant of me to stick my head in the sand and not have a clue what pictures are in their heads.

I had a nurse offer to take a picture of my first child. Stillborn. I let her. Not for me, mind you, but because she thought she was trying to help. My husband thought it was freaky. Funeral homes do it all the time.

What I can’t get over is how much you assume. We don’t know who kept them, how many, what they were pictures of, but you assume you have the answers and you assume they are guilty.

It’s never occurred to you that the Slimes is fudging or outright misrepresenting the facts. It’s never occurred to you to give Marines the benefit of the doubt. You save that for the Slimes.

[freema]

You didn’t quite get the jist of what I was saying. It wasn’t about if she took the, they were sent to her, or she downloaded them. It was just, what would you think?

(How they got there didn’t really matter for this little hypothetical.)

[Girlene]

Found some info about when the photos were destroyed. From Jeff Dinsmore's statement to NCIS it appears they were destroyed prior to the end of Dec. 2005. So this would have been well before McGirk started nosing around looking for info.

I became aware photos had been taken by SGT LAUGHNER on 19Nov05. It was not unusual for LT GRAYSON to forward photographs taken during a BDA to me with his report. In this case he did not do so and in late Dec 05, when the Battalion was asking for pictures of the 19 Nov 05 incident I asked him if any existed. LT GRAYSON informed me he had ordered SGT LAUGHNER to delete the photographs because they did not meet our criteria for having intelligence value. I only received photographs from LT GRAYSON attached to a written report to support the intelligence mission.

Earlier in his statement, Dinsmore states that Laughner helped him make assessments about who was enemy vs. civilian KIA. 1st Lt. Grayson was not involved in that process.

Later in the evening 19Nov05,1 began to put together an assessment of what had occurred that day. Utilizing reporting from SCAN EAGLE and KCO, I put together a Power Point briefing regarding my assessment of the TTP of the insurgents. The assessment was a broad picture of citywide attacks and not solely focused on events surrounding Route Chestnut. I made some assumptions with regards to the number of EKIA and NKIA. Utilizing three reporting criteria, MAJ CARRASCO and I made decisions regarding which individuals killed that day were either EKIA or NKIA. We relied on KCO and the HET, consisting of SGT LAUGHNER and SGT SENTENO at KCO for most of the information used to make our assessments.

[RS]

“You didn’t quite get the jist of what I was saying. It wasn’t about if she took the, they were sent to her, or she downloaded them. It was just, what would you think?

(How they got there didn’t really matter for this little hypothetical.)”

Actually it did ... and I’m surprised you don’t realize it...

But why they still exist there when you found them is even more revealing - perhaps you can explain why YOU would think it would be OK for anyone to keep these on their cell ?

[freema]

You still haven’t answered my question.