Posted on 04/24/2007 6:09:22 PM PDT by RaceBannon
On Wednesday night, at 10PM Eastern, 9 Central, there will be a live blogtalk internet broadcast with 3 of the families of the Marines accused in the Pendleton 8 (Hamdania) incident.
This is of the highest importance due to today's and otherrecent revelations of NCIS corruption and intimidation of witnesses and falsification of evidence in court martials.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=17557
Click here tomorrow night for the interviews
BELOW IS A STORY FROM 2004 WHERE THE ACTIONS OF NCIS WERE CALLED INTO QUESTION BEFORE::
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20040213-9999-1mc13dengler.html
Marine upset over Iraq POW case
Officer accuses NCIS of ‘unethical’ methods
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 13, 2004
Now that the initial hearings in the death of an Iraqi prisoner are over, an angry Marine officer thinks another inquiry should begin.
This one, said Lt. Col. Ralph A. Dengler, should focus on how Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents treated sailors and Marines while investigating the death of Iraqi POW Nagam Sadoon Hatab.
Hatab, 52, died in June at a prison camp run by Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 25th Regiment, a reserve infantry unit based on the East Coast and attached to the 1st Marine Division from Camp Pendleton during the war.
Dengler was the unit’s executive officer. In civilian life, the former state prosecutor is an intellectual-properties lawyer in New York City. His allegations of NCIS misconduct are uncommonly blunt for a military officer.
“NCIS agents used very unethical, very underhanded methods with our Marines and sailors,” Dengler, 37, said in a telephone interview. “I plan to advise the director of the NCIS about the abuses.”
Eight Marines from his battalion originally were charged with infractions ranging from dereliction of duty to negligent homicide in Hatab’s death.
The government alleges that the Marines – all prison guards or prison commanders – abused Hatab, allowed the abuse or kept medical care from him. He died after three days in U.S. custody, the exact cause of death a matter of debate.
In recent hearings, Dengler, who also served in the Persian Gulf War, was a defense witness. All testimony is being reviewed by Col. William Gallo, who will decide whether any Marines should stand trial.
With his prosecutorial background, Dengler said he quickly concluded that the NCIS – the Department of the Navy’s primary law enforcement arm – was bent on charging his Marines and not on discerning the facts.
“We had no desire to impede the investigation then or now,” Dengler testified in late January. “But as we started to get the flavor of how these Marines were being treated, we voiced our concerns to NCIS and up the chain of command.”
That flavor, Dengler said, included making Marines travel several hours from their base near Nasiriyah, Iraq, to the Crowne Plaza, the agents’ five-star hotel in Kuwait City, for questioning. Then they had to wait for hours or days before being interviewed.
NCIS agents also tried to bully a Marine, Dengler said, by threatening the non-U.S. citizen with immigration consequences if he didn’t cooperate.
“There is one story after another of Marines not being advised of their rights, of being yelled at and called liars and of being treated as if they were second-class citizens,” Dengler said in the interview.
“It’s unnerving and disturbing,” he said. “The agents probably need to be investigated for this.”
Paul O’Donnell, spokesman for the NCIS headquarters in Washington, D.C., said internal investigations are not commented on, but he was aware of Dengler’s allegations. He said there are formal channels for such complaints.
During his testimony, Dengler also said that influence by Maj. Gen. James Mattis, the division’s commanding general, set the accusatory tone for the Hatab investigation.
Dengler’s unvarnished testimony surprised defense attorneys.
“It is unusual for an officer to say that,” said Jack Zimmermann, a former Marine Corps lawyer and judge representing Lance Cpl. Christian Hernandez.
Hernandez is facing some of the most serious charges, including negligent homicide, in the Hatab case.
“He interviewed everyone who was interviewed by NCIS and he was shocked by their tactics,” Zimmermann said. “If the information he got from them is true, I don’t think he is overreacting.”
Donald G. Rehkopf Jr., a lawyer representing another Marine in the case, said service members are supposed to be treated with respect under the military justice system.
“Instead, his men were uniformly treated badly,” he said. “He’s standing up for his men like any good officer would.”
In recent weeks, the scope of the government’s case has shrunk. Charges have been withdrawn against three of the eight Marines, and one has entered into a plea agreement in exchange for his testimony.
Gallo, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego in civilian life, has remarked during the hearings he has presided over about the generally weak cases the government has brought.
The decision to try any or all of the Marines will belong to Mattis, though Gallo’s recommendation will carry weight because of his status as a senior judge advocate and his experience as a career prosecutor, according to lawyers involved in the case.
Nor, again, do I have words.
Somebody’s feet have to be held to the fire. We’ve had far too many of these politicized prosecutions—the two Border Patrol Agents come to mind as well as these troops.
If the lawyers in the military bureaucracy aren’t held accountable in some way, they will continue to abuse their offices.
I don’t know the best way to do it, but clearly there needs to be a shakeup, and that means putting the pressure on in the right places, from the top down.
10 PM. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=17557 . Got it. Thank you.
Damn.
I have to fully wake up and get ready for work. But this does not sound good regarding the commanding general. I could appear Mattis set the stage for what was to come. And that is sad.
bump
Does anyone have a sense where this is headed?
The familes appearing are parents of Marines who took plea deals, correct?
It should be the Pennington family, the Sharratt family and the Hutchins family
There may be a surprise guest.
TONIGHT AT 22:00
Again, TONIGHT, Freepers FLIGHTLINE and EUPHORIA DEV will be live on Internet radio with 3 of the families of the Pendleton 8 (Hamdania) and Haditha Marines to discuss the treatment of the Marines who were accused.
It was revealed last week that the family of Cpl Pennington has to this date STILL NOT RECEIVED any information concerning their son who recently took a plea dael to avoid life in prison.
The father of Cpl Pennington will be on, along with the family of Sgt Hutchins and possibly the father of Justion Sharratt (Haditha).
New information has come out and has been revealed in last weeks show on the forced confessions and treatment worse than Guantanamo Bay prison toward our Marines and their deprivation of due process.
listen here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=17557
Thanks, Race!
Terry gave me permission to post his response. I thought it might be helpful to bring others, who may not be following all the details in the case, up to speed.
One of this issues we face with this case, much of the information that our guys gathered, evidence they obtained prior to their arrest was classified and still remains so. Sgt. Hutchins defense team is working very hard to get this changed but so far to no avail. It is interesting to note that two more top-notch attorneys have joined his defense team on a pro bono basis.
It should be understood the area they were operating operates as a tribal system. Tribes are groups of families living in close proximity. These tribes can be classified in two ways - friend or foe. That classification applies to every member of the tribe from the elders to the children.
The leader of the tribe in question is a man named Saleah Gowad. His immediate next door neighbor was the victim in this case, Mr. Awad. Gowad has a nickname. The translation of said nickname is "Prince of Jihad". He is the prince, his other military-age male tribe members are his deputies.
Mr. Gowad was known by the authorities, both local police and Marines as a leader of the tribe planting IEDs or "roadside bombs". It happens there is only one road in and out of the area. It is Penguins Road, used daily by our Marines as the only ingress and egress from the area to which they were assigned. There was no other way in or out. Every day they would watch as their fellow Marines in their humvees were blown up by these IEDs. One of their own guys, PFC Jackson, later to become a member of the "Pendleton 8" was himself blown up by one of these devices two weeks prior. He was not seriously hurt and able to return to duty shortly thereafter.
Gowad was arrested three times by the local police as a "suspect" in the bombings. He was released each time within about a day. Our guys saw this going on, they saw other Marines being blown up - they knew they were the only ones up to the job. The rest is pretty well documented in the press.
Our guys were being used as policemen. Without any real police training. They were trained as warriors. One of the police-like duties was to take what they call a "census". Talk to the locals, find out how many military-age males live in each house, how many weapons they have, that sort of thing. Rob was heavily involved in this activity since he had learned to speak passable arabic. They knew who was who and what was what and all their reports and notes remain classified. I take his word for the fact that they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt Awad was one of the bad guys.
During Rob's court-martial, his long-time commander through all three combat deployments testified "The world's a better place without Awad." The prosecutor countered "You mean Gowad?" Capt. Diaz replied "No sir, both of them."
Talking to Rob about the rules of engagement "ROEs", he talks about black, white and shades of gray. In his opinion, and I'm sure in the opinion of others, ROEs are mostly gray area. He told his mother recently "Taking out Gowad would have been very very light gray if not white and therefore a 'good kill'. Awad on the other hand, might be a little darker shade of gray but by no means a matter of black and white as the government would have the world believe."
The reason the 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment (3/5) was there in the first place is due to the fact that their predecessors did not get the job done. 3/5 has been known as the ones to get any nasty job done since WWII. They kicked butt and took names in that war, Korea, VietNam etc etc. Then on to the Middle East and the clearing of Fallujah. They are the ones to turn to when you need the "pros from Dover" as Hawkeye Pierce would say.
We're hoping the material we need to show the kill was more white than gray will be declassified. In the meantime military members everywhere are hunkering down hoping not to get shot or blown up rather than taking proactive measures to prevent death and injury.
When this incident occured, one or more members of Gowad's tribe accused our guys of wrongdoing in the death of Awad. In jumps NCIS and the rest is history.
NCIS believed the enemy rather than our Marines, wrote up statements and proceeded to coerce our Heroes into not just signing them, but initialing every paragraph. Our men were denied their constitutional right to have an attorney present during their interrogations. They were deprived of food, water and bathroom breaks for up to eight hours at a stretch. I've heard from family members of Marines involved in some of the other high profile cases the same things about NCIS tactics.
In our opinion the NCIS investigators should be the ones in jail. Our guys deserve medals for saving lives through their actions. Their families deserve reparations of the the money they've had to pay to defense teams, investigators, translators and doctors who have helped with their defense.
Terry Pennington
And where is Gowad?
(Ping to letter from Pennington’s father)
Thanks for that Red. That is a good synopsis from Mr. Pennington. It sets the background for tonight’s interview.
You’re welcome, Girl. I can’t stay up for the podcast, unfortunately. I’ll have to read the comments tomorrow and listen to it on Kit’s site.
No one ever found out what happened to Gowad after Awad was killed. He just disappeared. IED incidents reportedly dropped by over 50% on the one road in and out of the area. It was assumed he left the area or changed his behaviour but there was never an official non-classified answer. If and when they de-classify all the intel for that area we may find out.
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