Probe Finds Marines Killed Unarmed Iraqi Civilians

SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found.

Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq.

An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either failed to stop them or filed misleading or blatantly false reports.

The report concludes that a dozen Marines acted improperly after a roadside bomb explosion killed a fellow Marine, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas.

Looking for insurgents, the Marines entered several homes and began firing their weapons, according to the report.

In its initial statement to the media, the Marine Corps said the Iraqi civilians were killed either by an insurgent bomb or by crossfire between Marines and insurgents.

But after Time magazine obtained pictures showing dead women and children and quoted Iraqis who said the attack was unprovoked, the Marine Corps backtracked on its explanation and called for an investigation.

The Marines, many of whom were on their third deployment to Iraq, are part of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division.

The battalion commander and two company commanders were relieved of duty last month because, a spokesman said, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the division, had lost confidence in their leadership.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducted a separate investigation, is expected to call for criminal charges, including murder, negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and filing a false report.

The facts so far gleaned from various sources over the last week are:

1. There was an IED that hit the Marines.
2. There was an ambush.
3. A firefight ensued.
4. The accusers of the Marines are civilians from the area out of which the firing came.
5. The enemy combatants do not wear a uniform, but they violate the Geneva accord in that point. Geneva has this rule about combatants BECAUSE it makes it more likely that civilians will be killed when combatants masquerade as civilians.

A letter from a combat arms commander recently returned from exactly the same area said:

As you may know, my unit operated in the next AO over to the east from Haditha, (east of them on Phoenix, without giving too much OPSEC info).
I can assure you this is a problem out toward Syria in the desert (Jazeera) where you have smugglers, black marketeers, terrorists and just plain folk dressed exactly alike...and it's been that way for centuries, as Haditha is right along one of the major trade/smuggling/transit routes from Syria to Tikrit, Bayji, Mosul and eventually Kirkuk. None of the aforementioned groups are particularly thrilled at having us disrupt their "livelihood". None, of course, wear uniforms as combatants. Some pay for this with their lives, and seem perfectly willing to allow innocents to die as a result.
My experience with JAG's (Army ones) was that they were very in tune with what the commander's and individual riflemen were going through (at least in our BDE). As you know there are mechanisms to sort through this type of incident: 15-6, Article 32, Cdr's Inquiry. If the ROE was understood and enforced by the leadership, the benefit of the doubt always went to that kid on the spearpoint holding the rifle. It HAS to be that way, or we are setting these young men up for failure.
There is more to this that we know, but the USMC is pretty good at sorting these things out and policing their own ranks. It troubles me though that the media and politicians are so involved in a battalion level incident.

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