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Haditha, Iraq: 21st Century My Lai
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| ogvh5150 |
Haditha:
In Haditha, Memories of a Massacre
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD, May 26 -- Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.
Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."
The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates.
Two U.S. military boards are investigating the incident as potentially the gravest violation of the law of war by U.S. forces in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq. The U.S. military ordered the probes after Time magazine presented military officials in Baghdad this year with the findings of its own investigation, based on accounts of survivors and on a videotape shot by an Iraqi journalism student at Haditha's hospital and inside victims' houses.
An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service into the killings and a separate military probe into an alleged coverup are slated to end in the next few weeks. Marines have briefed members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and other officials on the findings; some of the officials briefed say the evidence is damaging. Charges of murder, dereliction of duty and making a false statement are likely, people familiar with the case said Friday.
"Marines overreacted . . . and killed innocent civilians in cold blood," said one of those briefed, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who maintains close ties with senior Marine officers despite his opposition to the war.
Haditha is one of a chain of farm towns on the Euphrates River where U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled foreign and local insurgents without resolution for much of the war. The first account of the killings there was a false or erroneous statement issued the next day, Nov. 20, by a U.S. Marine spokesman from a Marine base in Ramadi: "A U.S. Marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.''
story continues at link
excerpted from:
New Witness Describes Alleged Iraq Atrocity
Girl, 12, Was Sole Survivor When Her Family Was Killed in Haditha; Congressman Says 'Mass Murder' Was Covered Up
By JONATHAN KARL
May 28, 2006 — -
On the new tape shot by an Iraqi journalism student and given to ABC News by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group in Iraq, Younis, soft-spoken, with rounded cheeks and a headscarf, begins by calmly telling the interviewer, "My name is Safa Younis. I'm 12 years old."
The interviewer asks, "What did the American soldiers do when they broke into the house?"
"They knocked at the door," Younis says. "My father went to open it, they shot him dead from behind the door, and then they shot him again after they opened the door."
She describes hearing the Marines go through the rest of the house, shooting and setting off a grenade before getting to the bedroom where she was with her mother and siblings.
"Then comes one American soldier and shot [at] us all," she says. "I pretended to be dead … and he did not know about me."
excerpted from:
U.S. Paid $2,500 for Each Death in Haditha
by Tom Bowman
The U.S. Marines paid at least $38,000 to the families of Iraqi civilians killed in a November clash in Haditha. The payments were made in December, according to a report in The Denver Post that was confirmed by NPR.
It is standard procedure for the military to make payments when it is at fault. The payments, which included $2,500 for each person killed, were authorized by the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Chessani, and his superiors. But it's uncertain how far up the chain of command the approval had to go.
excerpted from:
local news
No direct link ties Marine to deaths
Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani of Rangely lost his post after his unit was implicated in civilian slayings, but officials say the two actions may not be connected.
Article Launched: 05/28/2006 01:00:00 AM MDT
By Kirk Mitchell, John Aloysius Farrell, Mike Soraghan and Joey Bunch
Denver Post Staff Writers
Coffman said he also spoke with a Marine officer who paid $38,000 in reparations to Iraqi families of those killed during the Hadithah incident.
The officer, whom Coffman identified as Dana Hyatt, asked him while they were serving together in Hadithah in March how he should respond to an interview request by Time magazine.
Hyatt told Coffman that Marines may have overreacted following an explosion at Hadithah and shot at what they thought were insurgents loading guns when they were actually firing at a large family eating breakfast, Coffman said, adding that the sound the Marines heard may have been plates clinking together.
Hyatt could not be reached Saturday.
The fact that the U.S. paid as much as they did to the relatives of the dead indicates the Marines knew the operation was flawed, Coffman said.
"On its face, there was a problem," he said.
New York Daily News
Druggie marines?
BY DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, June 5th, 2006
The wife of a Marine whose unit is accused of killing Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha says the troops might have been high on illicit drugs when they carried out the alleged massacre, a new report says.
"It's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha," the woman told Newsweek for its upcoming issue.
She told the magazine that the unit suffered "a total breakdown" in discipline and morale after a new commander took over early in 2005.
Some returning U.S. troops say alcohol and prescription drug abuse is rampant in Iraq, where extreme stress and numbing boredom are the only constants.
"There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it," said the woman, whose husband is a staff sergeant in the unit.
The startling claims came as officials continued to probe the killings of 24 civilians in Haditha last Nov. 19.
Iraqi witnesses say Marines shot the civilians in cold blood after one of their comrades was killed by insurgents. Marines initially claimed the Iraqis died in a roadside bombing, but they were actually killed by gunfire.
"They went into one house. I heard gunfire, explosions and screams," Iraqi witness Taher Thabet told Time magazine.
The massacre claim could wind up being one of the worst blows yet to the American occupation of Iraq.
Many Iraqis believe that Haditha-style killings by U.S. troops happen nearly daily, and some U.S. commentators have already compared the killings with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which fueled popular opposition to that war.
Secretary of State Rice vowed yesterday that the military would "get to the bottom" of the massacre claim and promised to stay the course in Iraq.
"American forces are the solution here, not the problem," Rice said, adding that insurgents are partly to blame for "hiding" among civilians.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was an Air Force lawyer, termed the Haditha allegations "unnerving," but said he was confident the military would conduct a thorough investigation.
"If it is true that our Marines killed innocent civilians, noncombatants, out of revenge, they will be severely dealt with," he said.
Photos seem to contradict Marine version of Haditha killings
By Jamie McIntyre
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon sources say some of the most incriminating evidence against Marines under investigation in the deaths of civilians at Haditha is a set of photographs taken by another group of Marines who came along afterward and helped clean up the scene.
CNN is the first news organization to examine those images. They were snapped before an aspiring Iraq journalist videotaped the aftermath of the November 19 deaths. That video convinced Time magazine to pursue the story earlier this year.
Pentagon sources say the 30 images of men, women and children are some of the strongest evidence that, in some cases, the victims were shot inside their homes and at close range -- not killed by shrapnel from a roadside bomb or by stray bullets from a distant firefight, as Marines had claimed.
Senior Pentagon officials have said a probe into the November deaths tends to support allegations that Marines carried out an unprovoked massacre after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. The military is investigating both the deaths and a possible cover-up.
The Marines originally reported that Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, a town on the Euphrates River in northwestern Iraq that was the scene of heavy fighting in 2005. They later added that eight insurgents were killed in an ensuing gun battle.
The Marine photographs are evidence in a criminal probe, and only investigators and a few very senior officials have access to them.
"I have seen the photographs, but they are part of the investigation and I'm not going to talk about those photographs," Marine commandant Gen. Michael Hagee told reporters Wednesday.
But a source allowed CNN to examine copies of the photographs, which a military official said match in both number and description the pictures in the possession of investigators.
The source would not allow CNN to have copies of the images out of concern over personal repercussions.
There are images of 24 bodies, each marked with red numbers. Some of numbers are written on foreheads, others on the victim's backs. A senior military official told CNN that in some cases the numbers may denote the location of bullet wounds.
Among the images:
- A woman and child leaning against the wall, heads slumped forward.
- Another woman and child shot in bed.
- A man sprawled face down with his legs behind him.
- An elderly woman slumped over, her neck possibly snapped by the force of gunfire.
All of the victims were wearing casual attire. Some had been shot in the head. Some were face down, others face up.
The pictures appear to show the locations of the bodies in the houses before a Marine unit loaded them into a truck and brought them to a morgue.
Pentagon officials said there are no plans to release the gruesome images, even after the criminal investigation is complete.
The Haditha photos, like the images of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, would incite anti-American fervor and therefore constitute a threat to national security, they said.
In a separate incident, seven Marines and a Navy medical corpsman are being held in a brig at Camp Pendleton, California, to face possible murder charges in connection with the April killing of an Iraqi man in Hamandiya, a military officer with direct knowledge of the investigation said.
Briefing reporters Wednesday, Hagee was tight-lipped about the investigations but said Marines "absolutely know right from wrong."
Hagee flew to Iraq two weeks ago on a trip the Marine Corps said was already scheduled. But he used the time to lecture his Marines on what he called "the American way of war" amid the two probes.
Hagee said he is "gravely concerned" by the allegations and promised that the investigations now under way will be thorough and complete.
The U.S. command in Baghdad ordered an investigation into the Haditha killings in February, after Time magazine reporters presented video of the scene to American commanders.
Find this article at:
Photos seem to contradict Marine version of Haditha killings
Ishaqi:
USED WITHOUT PERMISSION FOR NON-COMMERCIAL EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. |
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| shaolin_Z |
:whip:
Thanks for the info dude, depressing as it is. :( |
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| tathi |
that's so sad :( :(
I guess the 12 year old would have quite a large sum of money to her name now that her entire family as been killed |
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| Q5echo |
A 5th regiment embed remembers.
| quote: | A reporter's shock at the Haditha allegations
By Arwa Damon
CNN
Tuesday, May 30, 2006; Posted: 9:56 p.m. EDT (01:56 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- It actually took me a while to put all the pieces together -- that I know these guys, the U.S. Marines at the heart of the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
I don't know why it didn't register with me until now. It was only after scrolling through the tapes that we shot in Haditha last fall, and I found footage of some of the officers that had been relieved of their command, that it hit me.
I know the Marines that were operating in western al Anbar, from Husayba all the way to Haditha. I went on countless operations in 2005 up and down the Euphrates River Valley. I was pinned on rooftops with them in Ubeydi for hours taking incoming fire, and I've seen them not fire a shot back because they did not have positive identification on a target. (Watch a Marine's anguish over deaths -- 2:12)
I saw their horror when they thought that they finally had identified their target, fired a tank round that went through a wall and into a house filled with civilians. They then rushed to help the wounded -- remarkably no one was killed.
I was with them in Husayba as they went house to house in an area where insurgents would booby-trap doors, or lie in wait behind closed doors with an AK-47, basically on suicide missions, just waiting for the Marines to come through and open fire. There were civilians in the city as well, and the Marines were always keenly aware of that fact. How they didn't fire at shadows, not knowing what was waiting in each house, I don't know. But they didn't.
And I was with them in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians.
I'm told that investigators now strongly suspect a rampage by a small number of Marines who snapped after one of their own was killed by a roadside bomb.
Haditha was full of IEDs. It seemed they were everywhere, like a minefield. In fact, the number of times that we were told that we were standing right on top of an IED minutes before it was found turned into a dark joke between my CNN team and me.
In fact, when we initially left to link up with the company that we were meant to be embedded with, the Humvee that I was in was hit by an IED. Another 2 inches and we would have been killed. Thankfully, no one was injured.
We missed the beginning of the operation, and ended up entering Haditha that evening. The city was empty of insurgents, or they had gone into hiding as they so often do, blending with the civilian population, waiting for U.S. and Iraqi forces to sweep through and then popping up again.
But this time, after this operation, the Marines and the Iraqi Army were not going to pull out, they were going to set up fixed bases.
Now, all these months later, while watching the tapes, I found a walk and talk with one of the company commanders that was relieved of his duty as a result of the Haditha probe.
After being hit by an IED, his men were searching the area and found a massive weapons cache in a mosque. Although it wasn't his company that we were embedded with, the Marines had taken me to the mosque so we could get footage of the cache.
And so began the e-mails and phone calls between myself and my two other CNN crew members, Jennifer Eccleston and Gabe Ramirez: Do you remember when we were talking with the battalion commander and his intel guy right outside the school and then half an hour later they found an IED in that spot? Do you remember when we were sitting chatting with them at the school? And all the other "do you remember whens."
There was also -- can you believe it? -- the allegations of the Haditha probe |
>source< |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
A 5th regiment embed remembers.
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Why are people posting this as though it somehow mitigates what allegedly happened? She says she "was with [the marines] in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians" but at no point does she even attempt to contradict or falsify the allegations of murder that have been raised against them. The obvious reason for this is that she simply wasn't there, so I'm not exactly sure what this article is meant to demonstrating to anyone?
So long as we're going on the eyewitness testimony of people who weren't there, though, perhaps it might be worth posting what the Iraq ambassador to the US thinks?
| quote: | BLITZER: What do you know about what happened at Haditha?
SUMAIDAIE: Well, I heard the report very soon after the event in November from some relatives. And as it happened, my own security detail [man] comes from that neighborhood. And his home is hardly a hundred yards from the home which was hit.
And he was in touch through the Internet with his folks and neighbors. And the situation which he reported to me was that it was a cold-blooded killing.
BLITZER: By who?
SUMAIDAIE: By the Marines, I believe.
[...]
BLITZER: But even months before the incident in November, you lost a cousin at Haditha in a separate battle involving United States Marines.
SUMAIDAIE: Well, that was not a battle at all. Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them.
His mother, his siblings were there. He led them into the bedroom of his father. And there he was shot.
BLITZER: Who shot him?
SUMAIDAIE: A member of the Marines.
BLITZER: Why did they shoot him?
SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self-defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent -- I mean, I know the boy. He was [in] a second-year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.
Totally unbelievable. And, in fact, they had no weapon in the house. They had one weapon which belonged to the school where his father was a headmaster. And it had no ammunition in it. And he led them into the room to show it to them.
BLITZER: So what you're suggesting, your cousin was killed in cold blood, is that what you're saying, by United States Marines?
SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing.
I would like further investigation. I have, in fact, asked for the report of the last investigation, which was a criminal investigation, by the way.
[Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq] is aware of all the details, because he's kept on top of it. And it was he who rejected the conclusions of the first investigation. I have since asked formally for the report, but it's been nearly two months, and I have not received it.
[...]
BLITZER: But what I hear you saying -- and I don't want to put words in your mouth -- is there maybe, in Haditha, at least, a pattern to what happened to your nephew, what happened apparently in November when these other Marines went in?
Are there any other examples of cold-blooded murder that you are familiar with in Haditha?
SUMAIDAIE: I am familiar with at least one other killing of three youths, which happened very soon after the killing of my cousin. They were in a car. They were unarmed, I believe. And they were shot.
Now, in that case, there could be possibly [an] excuse or explanation that the Marines were afraid. They were approaching them too fast, or whatever. But the details as they were related to me were such that there was no possibility of misunderstanding.
But in all these situations, you know, you have the word of the community, people around, civilians around -- and you have the word of the individuals in the Marines. ...
When it comes to comparing these two sources, I mean, if my uncle, whom I have known all my life since childhood, and I know he would not make up stories, and I know he would not lie, and I know what is at stake is the life of his grandson, then, you know, I know which word to take.
BLITZER: Do you have confidence the U.S. military will do a thorough investigation?
SUMAIDAIE: Ultimately, possibly, yes. But in situations like this, the ramifications are so profound that they -- they would initially take the attitude that they hope this would go away.
If it can be swept under the rug, it would. But when -- when it goes up higher in the hierarchy, then there are people who recognize the potential damage of cover-up, and there is a better possibility of it being opened up.
BLITZER: So you're concerned there could be a cover-up?
SUMAIDAIE: There is always a concern against cover-up. |
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/m...cnna.sumaidaie/
The upshot of this interview is that:
- There are many eyewitnesses to what happened in Haditha who say that citizens were killed in cold blood.
- This may not have been the first such instance of marines murdering civilians in Haditha (to say nothing of what may be happening in the rest of the country).
- There appears to be little interest in investigating such events, let alone making the findings of the investigations public.
Like I said in the other thread, we wouldn't even have heard about what ("allegedly") happened in Haditha during November if not for a relentless investigation from the journalists at Time magazine. This can only raise the question of what else is happening that isn't being reported, and how many other dead marines - who are only endangering the safety of the other troops with these sorts of reckless actions - are being unjustly protected by the US military for crimes they have committed.
If the US military - and so, by extension, the US itself - wishes to maintain its moral authority or its fundamental credibility concerning the occupation of Iraq, then they will investigate matters like this and punish those who have committed wrongs to the full extent of the law. If they allow marines to get away with murder without even going through the process of investigating the crime, then it will only serve to undermine the legitimacy of the current occupation and to endanger the lives of US troops in the long-run. All allegations levelled against the conduct of marines in Iraq need to be investigated thoroughly and transparently: is that really too much to ask? |
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| LazFX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
If the US military - and so, by extension, the US itself - wishes to maintain its moral authority or its fundamental credibility concerning the occupation of Iraq, then they will investigate matters like this and punish those who have committed wrongs to the full extent of the law. If they allow marines to get away with murder without even going through the process of investigating the crime, then it will only serve to undermine the legitimacy of the current occupation and to endanger the lives of US troops in the long-run. All allegations levelled against the conduct of marines in Iraq need to be investigated thoroughly and transparently: is that really too much to ask? |
+1 |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Why are people posting this as though it somehow mitigates what allegedly happened? She says she "was with [the marines] in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians" but at no point does she even attempt to contradict or falsify the allegations of murder that have been raised against them. The obvious reason for this is that she simply wasn't there, so I'm not exactly sure what this article is meant to demonstrating to anyone? |
where did she say she was corroberating or bearing witness to the topic? i'll give ya a hint. she doesn't.
i doubt you didn't misread it. you're a fairly literate guy. you just don't want to give character to the people that did this. this horrible act. fine with me i. i don't care. that's what she's bearing witness to, and how strange irony it was to her after learning 9 months later she had been with and talked to those same Marines right before it happened. |
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| ogvh5150 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
A 5th regiment embed remembers.
>source< |
She might as well say what she is implying:
"Oh no not them, they could never do anything like that."
A suspects family usually claims:
"Oh no not my son, he'd never do that, he such a good kid, etc"
We'll be seeing more whitewash of this.
Murder is what it is, murder. |
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| Yoepus |
I don't know why people are trying to deny or disprove this really.
However, I don't think it is much to be concerned about so long as this is not a "trend" throughout the military, which at this time I would have hard time beleiving without overwhelming proof.
The reality is human are criminal, and in every society, be it a military, democracy, theocracy, etc. there will be crime.
Here we have brutal murders with yet unknown reason of intent (supposedly war based revenge). Is this any different then crime in the states where the bible-thumpers slay a homo, because he's an ass-thumper?!
Similarly I wonder if there have been any marine on marine murder action during the war on Iraq... I'm sure that would not be outrageous just as an Iraqi murdering an Iraqi an't all that news.
Of course this is an important issue, because one wants to distance themselves for this crime, say it is inexcusable, and bad, etc. But as long as it is not inherient to the system (which I do not think it is, quiet the contrary, as my hunch is if someone were to do a study of wars and find such incidents add the numbers divide by population or military force numbers, you would see a trend of decline over time) there is nothing to worry about.
Anyway my 2cents. |
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| NYCTrancefan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
as long as it is not inherient to the system (which I do not think it is, quiet the contrary, as my hunch is if someone were to do a study of wars and find such incidents add the numbers divide by population or military force numbers, you would see a trend of decline over time) there is nothing to worry about.
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The reality is of course that you know there are many waiting with folded arms to say haha we told you about the U.S. With incidents like this we have only served to provide more fodder for the cannon aimed right at us. Who cares if insurgents killed children and women, but the U.S. did it gotcha. It is why the troops there have to be as professional as possible in the circumstances. I heard that this story was all over that part of the world, while we heard little to nothing here about it originally. Whether it is inherent or not it doesn't take much for people to sharpen their daggers for the U.S. in today's environment. |
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| LazFX |
| quote: | Originally posted by NYCTrancefan
The reality is of course that you know there are many waiting with folded arms to say haha we told you about the U.S. With incidents like this we have only served to provide more fodder for the cannon aimed right at us. Who cares if insurgents killed children and women, but the U.S. did it gotcha. It is why the troops there have to be as professional as possible in the circumstances. I heard that this story was all over that part of the world, while we heard little to nothing here about it originally. Whether it is inherent or not it doesn't take much for people to sharpen their daggers for the U.S. in today's environment. |
+1 :) |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by ogvh5150
She might as well say what she is implying:
"Oh no not them, they could never do anything like that."
A suspects family usually claims:
"Oh no not my son, he'd never do that, he such a good kid, etc"
We'll be seeing more whitewash of this.
Murder is what it is, murder. |
okay. you've made it clear. you are not interested in context. murder is murder. my guess would be Renegade isn't either.
...and no matter where you stand at any given moment about any given murder, the wanton killing of civilians by the U.S. military has been and will always remain an anomaly of it's conduct.
(i'm paraphrasing someone btw) |
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