US News
Eight US Marines charged in 21 Iraqi murders, cover-up (Roundup)
By Pat Reber Dec 22, 2006, 1:30 GMT
Washington - Four US Marines are charged with murder in the deaths of 21 Iraqi civilians, and another four officers face prosecution for covering up the crimes or failing to investigate them, the US Marine Corps said Thursday.
The killings apparently took place on November 19, 2005, in Haditha, in the hours after a roadside explosion killed one Marine and injured another two, a Marine Corps officer said Thursday.
The killings in the volatile Al Anbar province, about 240km northwest of Baghdad, coupled with the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, have contributed to a dark chapter in US military history.
The killings have been compared to the 1968 massacre by US soldiers in My Lai, Vietnam, when an outburst of violence against civilians also represented an act of revenge.
A total of 24 Iraqi men, women and children died 'in the vicinity' of the bomb in Haditha, said Col. Stewart Navarre in a press statement issued at Camp Pendleton, California.
It was not clear why the charges only mentioned 21 individual victims. The dead included nine women and children, media reports said.
A day after the killings, the Marine Corps falsely implied in a press statement that 15 Iraqi civilians had been killed by a roadside bomb, investigators found.
'We now know with certainty the press release was incorrect, and that none of the civilians were killed by the IED (Improvised Explosive Device) explosion,' said Navarre.
The probe was triggered by an investigation published by the US weekly magazine Time in January, Navarre said.
Four Marines - Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, the squad leader; Sergeant Sanick Dela Cruz; and Lance Corporals Justin Sharratt and Stephen Tatum - are charged with murder. The names of victims are listed in a summary of the charging documents.
All four face life in prison if found guilty of 'unpremeditated murder,' and no death sentence was being sought.
Wuterich is charged with killing the most number of people - 12 - and another six unnamed persons who were inside a house. He allegedly cleared the house 'with deadly force' without identifying the occupants beforehand - in violation of US military rules of war, the documents said.
Tatum is charged with unpremeditated murder in two cases and negligent homicide in another four. Sharratt allegedly killed three Iraqis.
Dela Cruz's alleged five victims are among the 12 also listed as victims of Wuterich. The squad leader is charged with pushing Del Cruz to make 'false official' statements to command officers.
The cover-up charges allege that Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, First Lieutenant Andrew Grayson, Captain Lucas McConnell and Captain Randy Stone either wilfully failed to report the truth of what happened up the chain of command, or failed to carry out a thorough investigation, the documents said.
The officers face lesser prison terms, from six months to two years.
A probe into the Haditha killings led by Major General Eldon Bargewell concluded that 'reporting of the incident up the chain of command was inaccurate and untimely,' Navarre said.
After opening the investigation earlier this year, the Pentagon acted swiftly to order all coalition troops in Iraq to receive fresh moral and ethics training within 30 days.
The move underscored a key focus of the investigation, which aimed to find out if the 'command climate' of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment 'encouraged the disciplined application' of rules of engagement.
The Marines in question had been 'adequately trained' in the rules, which are intended to protect innocent civilians from injury and death, the Bargewell probe found.
The criminal part of the probe was carried out by Naval investigators.
The Haditha killings is just one of several investigations into US military misconduct in Iraq.
At least one discharged soldier has been charged in civilian courts with murdering four members of an Iraq family and raping one of the victims in Mahmudiyah.
The US military has also charged seven US Marines and a Navy corpsman with the murder of a 54-year-old Iraqi man in the town of Hamdaniya. Another four US soldiers have been charged with the murder of three Iraqi detainees who were shot during an operation in southern Salah ad Din Province on May 9.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
In response to Shelly;
I agree that war distorts the minds of those trained to fight it. They purposly train soldiers to de-humanize the enemy so they will agree to kill them. I also agree with your sentiment that this war is wrong on many levels. America should have never entered a war of pre-emptive or revenge oriented principles, nor should it fight to make free others who did not ask or want America's style of freedoms, including the tired argument of forced Democracy. This is why war should ALWAYS be avoided at all costs and used as the last option before people start losing their lives on a mass scale or the ability to live as they choose in their own nations (like Darfur). I'm no hippy I was involved in the first gulf war. You will never see terror or atrocity on a bigger scale then war. But please believe me when I say that most Americans did not want this war, and we don't share the blame of our reckless and ignorant so called leaders. We need to start talking Impeachment people.
Support our troops----Impeach Bush
John Stewart said it best on The Daily Show, asking rhetorically'
'We are counting on the same idiots that got us into this
mess, to now get us out of it??? We're the crazy ones!'
It is correct that many (not 'most') Americans did not want the United States at war. While those 'many' are not to blame, they might be the only ones that are 'responsible' in any meaningful way.
This war has placed otherwise reasonable human beings in harms way, allowing circumstances to exist that promote human rights violations. Those at home are plowing through the mindlessness of torture, nationalism, and operating as if they are immune to the vicissitudes of life. Ribbons and bumper stickers suddenly cover the elite chrome of Urban Assault Vehicles carrying soccer mom’s to their respective fundamentalist meetinghouse so they can pray that their children shoot straight.
I am reminded by these small flags twisted into ribbons and applied to vehicles that many Americans are present in Iraq in their own volunteered way, torturing, raping, and killing. Our people are sick with fear, and this illness has crippled our courage, even as we pray for troops that represent our illness in a far-away land.
'War is Hell.'
That's why it should only be used in the most desperate of cirsumstances.
We forget as AMERICANS who were born and raised here in America Generation to generation what this Country was built on. I know this The World Trade Center was INIALATED by a very much pre meditated muslim masses of Middle Easterners Who's Goals are to destroy America and its inhabitants and Christianity and attempt to take over by force the future of our children in this nation. All of a sudden we become the bad guy in a world that chooses in thier own countries to live a way of life they live, but yet dispies the life God Has Blessed America and it's people with. They envy what they don't have because the God They Worship has not full filled thier hearts. But yet these foreighn Masses of Arab Middle Easternerners Plot,Plan,Execute destruction upon our nation. We as Christians have seen Beloved Israels response when attacked to who ever posess threat to thier existence. We in time of war must defend our nation at all cost. Including when you have any human being, ANY who is enemies of our God and Nation and it's people and destroy the future of generations to come WE MUST PULL THE CAN OF RAID OUT AND EXTERMINATE ALL THE ROACHES.
The pentagon will censor this news soon and mainstream media will forget all about it. After all, censorship is becoming America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like 'America Deceived' from Amazon and Wikipedia, and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings.
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the book):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-38523-0
page: 1
ShelleyDec 24th, 2006 - 04:06:30
Has everyone forgotten that some of the victims were raped? This sick war distorts soldiers minds making them believe 'the enemy' are less than human. Shame on you, USA.
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