Photos Indicate Civilians Slain Execution-Style - Los Angeles Times
By Tony Perry and Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writers
May 27, 2006
Photographs taken by a Marine intelligence team have convinced investigators that a Marine unit killed as many as 24 unarmed Iraqis, some of them "execution-style," in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha after a roadside bomb killed an American in November, officials close to the investigation said Friday. The pictures are said to show wounds to the upper bodies of the victims, who included several women and six children. Some were shot in the head and some in the back, congressional and defense officials said. One government official said the pictures showed that infantry Marines from Camp Pendleton "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results."
The case may be the most serious incident of alleged war crimes in Iraq by U.S. troops. Marine officers have long been worried that Iraq's deadly insurgency could prompt such a reaction by combat teams. An investigation by an Army general into the Nov. 19 incident is to be delivered soon to the top operational commander in Iraq. A separate criminal investigation is also underway and could lead to charges ranging from dereliction of duty to murder. Both investigations are centered on a dozen Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. The battalion was on its third deployment to Iraq when the killings occurred....
Marines Held in Brig During Investigation (Los Angeles Times)
By Tony Perry, Times Staff Writer
7:39 PM PDT, May 27, 2006
Several Marines are being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton and several more are restricted to the base pending an investigation into the possible murder of an Iraqi civilian and an attempt to make him appear to have been an insurgent, Marine officials said. The investigation into the April 26 killing in Hamandiya is separate from the investigation into the Nov. 19 killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha. But both cases involve the same moral, legal and tactical issues of how to treat noncombatants in the complex and chaotic battleground that is the western region of Iraq, which is patrolled by Marines.
"Like the commandant of the Marine Corps, Marines aboard Camp Pendleton are concerned regarding allegations emanating from Iraq," Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, based at Camp Pendleton, said in a statement Saturday. "But we will continue to undergo our extensive training regimen in preparation for future deployments. The Marine Corps prides itself on its history and its demanding moral code." [...]
The longer we're over there, especially with a force at or below parity with the insurgents, the more likely it is that we'll just do their job for them. There aren't enough soldiers to provide security for themselves, let alone the Iraqis. And even knowing that most of the American and other soldiers are reasonable, honest people ... what sane Iraqi is going to trust them, with the frequent revelation of fatal misbehavior? What sane Iraqi should trust them?
We do not have enough soldiers -- anywhere, never mind in place -- to be able to put down this insurgency with a minimum loss of either soldier or civilian life. We do not have the political will to revive the draft to make more soldiers -- which would take a great deal of time, in any event. We do not have the financial resources or political will to rebuild the country that we destroyed, which would make the insurgency somewhat less atrractive. We unleashed a religious civil war without having the slightest idea what we were doing. And the stress of coping with all of that -- as well as being sent to that nightmare place over and over again -- is making our soldiers do vile, reprehensible things.
And right now, there seems to be no way out.
(Purely a side note: for information on how truly bad we can expect things to get, read histories of the Philippine War that followed the Spanish-American War. The Philippines expected to be set free -- the US was on record as not wanting them -- and were bitterly disappointed when the US realized that leaving the Philippines alone merely meant that they would be annexed by Britain, France, Germany or Japan. The resulting war showed just how vile the US could be when confronted with an almost equally vile insurgency. That war was considerably shorter than this one is likely to be, if only because eventually the US did commit sufficient force to get things done. And because, for all that it was a war of independence that failed, it wasn't as savagely religious in nature as this one, and had a much smaller civil war component.)
Posted by iain at May 27, 2006 11:44 PM
