Posted on 05/19/2007 5:49:37 AM PDT by RedRover
Key witnesses and testimony
Lt. William Kallop
Platoon CO, the only officer on the scene during most of the incident. The lieutenant (granted immunity) testified just prior to the 3/1's third deployment to Iraq.
Quote: “I thought the Marines had operated as best they could in an uncertain environment,” Kallop said. “I had faith in my squad leader, who had told me what happened and why.”
[Sources: Marines Corp Times, San Diego Union Tribune, New York Times]
____________________________
1st Sgt. Albert Espinosa
As Kilo Company's first sergeant, Espinosa testified that one week after the Nov. 19, 2005, incident, he initiated a conversation with Stone at the battalion's command center in Haditha because, "I wasn't happy with the answers I was getting. I thought we need to do an investigation."
Stone told him that a probe was taking place at the battalion level, Espinosa said, later adding that a sergeant major also said it was being addressed at a higher level.
Espinosa said he thought that statements should have been taken from the Marines linked to the killing because that was what had happened in a 2003 incident when a 12-year-old Iraqi girl was slain. Espinosa assisted in that investigation.
Under questioning from Stone's attorney Charles Gittins, Espinosa said he was unaware of what reports were being filed at the battalion level.
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz
A corporal at the time of the incident, Sgt. Dela Cruz was granted immunity to testify. He was not involved in the house clearing, and his testimony only effects Sgt. Wuterich.
Quote: "They were just standing, looking around, had hands up," Dela Cruz said. "Then I saw one of them drop in the middle. I didn't know what was going on."
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
Maj. Gen. Richard Huck
Former commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, who at the time of the incident, was in charge of troops in Haditha. The general testified via video hookup from the Pentagon.
Quote: Huck commanded 19,000 U.S. military personnel at the time and 12,000 Iraqi soldiers and said he relied on staff reports of battle incidents such as in Haditha. "If someone felt there was a need to investigate, it could have come up from a myriad of places," he said.
[Sources: North County Times, Associated Press, Reuters]
____________________________
Sgt. Maj. Edward Sax
Testified that he only learned that civilians had died in Haditha when he saw the Sgt. Wuterich interview on 60 Minutes.
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
1st Lt. Adam Mathes
Kilo Co. executive officer.
Quote: “My impression of Sergeant Wuterich is that he is a very decent, quiet, mature guy. I didn’t have any reason to question their integrity.”
[Source: Reuters]
____________________________
Capt. Jeffery Dinsmore
Intelligence officer, 3rd Battalion.
Quote: “The reality is then and the reality is now, you let loose marines in a T.I.C. against a hostile situation, taking small-arms fire, they don’t have the training nor do they have the presence of mind to differentiate between civilians and insurgents. It stinks.”
[Source: Reuters, San Diego Union Tribune, New York Times, North County Times]
____________________________
Maj. Dana Hyatt
Civilian affairs officer, 3rd Battalion. He was given immunity to testify.
[Source: Associated Press, San Diego Union Tribune]
____________________________
Col. John Ewers
Legal affairs officer, assigned by the Marine Corps to assist Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell in a review of how commanders responded to Haditha.
Quote: "[Capt. Stone] didn't cover himself with glory ... but without being asked by his commander to do an investigation, I didn't think it rose to the level of criminal dereliction."
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
Maj. Samuel Carrasco
Operations officer, 3rd Battalion.
[Source: North County Times, Associated Press]
____________________________
Maj. Kevin Gonzales
Executive officer, 3rd Battalion.
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
Capt. Randy W. Stone
The accused gave unsworn testimony in his defense.
Quote:"I have never lied and have worked at all times to assist as best I could to shed light on what I knew and when I knew it. The most frustrating thing is the reality that even looking at this whole matter through 20/20 hindsight, I know I was trying to help.
"My firm belief that there was no law of armed conflict violation was the foundation for what actions I did take as well as action I did not take."
[Source: North County Times]
____________________________
And in closing...
From the Associated Press:
Prosecutors portrayed Stone as a meek novice who overlooked the killings in an attempt to gain favor with the other Marines. In his closing argument, Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury said that Stone knew women and children were killed in their homes but that he did nothing in response.
"The battalion judge advocate has a duty to make sure his Marines do not become desensitized to the mortally bruising combat environment that is Al Anbar, Iraq," Lt. Col. Atterbury said.
Defense attorney Charles Gittins said that the prosecution's case was based on the assumption that Stone knew the killings were wrong, but that prosecutors had the luxury of hindsight. More senior Marines saw no need to investigate the deaths because they were deemed to have been a lawful consequence of combat, he said.
"He had no more knowledge about the deaths than the division commander, who was actually briefed by the battalion commander," Gittins said.
Lt. Col. Atterbury said it was irrelevant that Stone's superiors saw no need for an investigation.
From the New York Times:
The presiding officer, Maj. Thomas McCann, seemed disconcerted about the testimony he had heard from several officers, from the general in charge of the Second Marine Division down to the first lieutenant whose men killed 24 civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. Several officers described civilian deaths as unfortunate but justifiable if they occurred during combat.
On Friday Major McCann, an experienced Marine lawyer, interjected some unsettling questions about how many civilian deaths it would take to constitute a violation of military regulations.
Alluding to Haditha, he asked, “At what point do we have to scratch our heads that we killed a lot more civilians than enemy?”
Because so many witnesses had testified that civilian deaths from “combat action” need not be investigated, Major McCann said, “I’m trying to figure out what authority they are citing.”
Maj. Carroll J. Connolly...a lawyer for the Marine regiment commanded then by Col. Stephen W. Davis, said he saw no need to investigate the civilian deaths in Haditha because they had come during combat with enemy fighters.
When Major McCann, the investigating officer, asked what the legal basis was for drawing that conclusion, Major Connolly, who was granted immunity from prosecution for his testimony, said he could not think of any.
From the North County Times:
...a prosecutor contended that Stone needed to be held accountable for failure to investigate a suspected violation of law, a suspicion that didn't arise until several weeks later when a Time magazine reporter said he had reason to believe a massacre had taken place.
"The evidence suggests he didn't do anything," Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury said of Stone. "The questions weren't asked (by Stone) of the right Marines."
The prosecutor also contended that Stone needed to serve as a moral compass for the battalion and therefore should have known to conduct at least a preliminary inquiry....
The case boils down to accountability, and Stone failed to carry out his job, the prosecutor said.
McCann also could consider additional charges of filing a false official statement for an e-mail Stone sent in late December to another Marine officer in which some of what he knew wasn't included, Atterbury contended, adding that a charge of conduct unbecoming an officer also could be levied.
Stone's attorney, Charles Gittins, said those suggestions typified the government's case, comparing the charging decision to a dartboard at which prosecutors blindly threw darts and filed criminal accusations on the basis of where the missiles landed.
"This entire case is an illusion of the truth," Gittins said during his closing argument. "This whole thing stinks -- this can't be the way the Marine Corps does business."
None of the testimony from government witnesses showed that Stone knew anything beyond the first account given by the Marines who would ultimately face murder charges in the killing, Gittins said. That account indicated that the civilians were "collateral damage" killed during the course of a combat action and no investigation was necessary.
The attorney said that if his client is guilty, legal officers and other Marine commanders far up the chain of command are similarly guilty. Three other officers, including the former battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, face similar charges.
____________________________
So those are the facts regarding the first Haditha hearing. My prediction is that the case against Capt. Randy W. Stone will not go to a court marital. I predict that charges will be dropped sometime in June or July, after the enlisted men's Article 32s.
David Allender
Defend Our Marines
Girlene’s the Gomer. I’m the Goober.
We’ll hear a lot more about the “failure to investigate” at the Lt. Col. Chessani hearing. I bet Brian Rooney, Chessani’s attorney, is looking forward to it.
Women and children in the third house? Massacred?
I guess the point of Dela Cruz’s testimony (dropped charges) was to try to prove that bad stuff went on and Capt. Stone did nothing to root out the Dreadful Crime.
They’ve got him by the balls....but it ain’t over yet and that boy was taught to FIGHT.
Regarding your question, Girl, about interviewing Marines after combat being standard procedure when civilians are killed.
In the last days of this hearing there were comments made on the record that NO ONE knows what the standard is here when it comes to numbers of killed civilians.
Regarding your question, Girl, about interviewing Marines after combat being standard procedure when civilians are killed.
In the last days of this hearing there were comments made on the record that NO ONE knows what the standard is here when it comes to numbers of killed civilians.
Bumpin’ it, GIRLENE!
SUMMARY PING
It’s confusing because Sgt. Wuterich’s fire team entered four houses—three of which ended up with dead Iraqis inside.
So people (including me) talk about the “third house” as meaning the third house with casualties.
The women and children in the house in the diagram above weren’t harmed and lived to make up tales about what they never saw.
Well, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite, Red. Where’s the massacre, eh? /sarc
As follows from a book review by Art Winslow:
Writing from Iraq for Vanity Fair last November, in a posting titled “Rules of Engagement,” journalist William Langewiesche began with the Euphrates and enumerated the towns strung along it in Al Anbar province: Fallujah, Ramadi, Hit, Haditha. Of the last, he noted, “Snipers permitting, you can walk it top to bottom in less than an hour, allowing time enough to stone the dogs. Before the American invasion, it was known as an idyllic spot, where families came from as far away as Baghdad to while away their summers splashing in the river and sipping tea in the shade of trees. No longer, of course. Now, all through Al Anbar, and indeed the Middle East, Haditha is known as a city of death, or more simply as a name, a war cry against the United States.”
Vanity Fair, which was perspicacious enough to hire Langewiesche away from his distinguished perch at the Atlantic, has just won a National Magazine Award for “Rules of Engagement,” a chronicle of the November 2005 killing of 24 Iraqi men, women and children in Haditha by U.S. Marines in the aftermath of a roadside bombing.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-bk-winslow20may20,0,5037260.story?coll=la-home-middleright
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Scroll down to the REPORTING and PUBLIC INTEREST CATEGORIES
http://www.magazine.org/Editorial/National_Magazine_Awards/Winners_and_Finalists/
Alternate universe. We are two Americas.
Seems to be a few little inconsistancies on the part of the prosecution. Ahemm.
In vain!
ROTF/LOL/LMAO!
I don't remember where I 1st heard that, but I figured the charges were BS then, and there's no doubt they are now.
That attorney's threats and statements sound like an old hen talking dirt about her neighbors - he's flailing, bad.
If that's all they got, this should be over quick.
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