Marine charged in Iraq deaths said women and kids should be shot, Associated Press, July 17, 2007
CAMP PENDLETON, California (AP) - A Marine charged with murdering two girls and killing several other Iraqis gave orders to shoot into a roomful of women and children, a squad member testified Tuesday.
Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum then went into the room himself, followed by noise that sounded like M-16 gunfire, said Lance Cpl. Humberto Manuel Mendoza.
"I told him there's just womens and kids in the room," Mendoza said. "He replied, 'Well, shoot them.'"
The testimony came on the second day of a hearing to determine whether Tatum will face court-martial for the Nov. 19, 2005, killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
The killings, which authorities say were sparked by an earlier roadside bombing that left one Marine dead, resulted in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.
Mendoza was with Tatum and two other Marines when they went to clear a house in the town about 240 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.
Mendoza, asked by a military prosecutor if Tatum was joking, replied: "He was very serious, sir."
Mendoza, who is among seven Marines given immunity in the case, said he shot a man who peeked around the side of a kitchen door in the house as the team went in. He said he stayed in the kitchen while squad members threw a grenade and moments later found a woman in her 20s cowering in a back bedroom with four or five children. In March 2006, he told investigators he shot at least two men because they were in houses declared hostile. The second man shot was in a different house.
Mendoza said he returned to the house later as part of a body retrieval team and saw that the woman and children were killed. All had multiple wounds that could have been caused by M-16 fire, he said.
According to a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service dated May 17, 2006, Tatum told investigators that he shot women and children because "women and kids can hurt you too." He went on to say he later felt remorseful about the incident.
The report describes an interview with Tatum, but it was not signed by the Marine.
Besides the unpremeditated murder charge, Tatum is charged with negligent homicide on suspicion that he unlawfully killed two men, a woman and a young boy. He is also accused of assaulting another boy and a girl. If convicted of murder, he faces up to life in prison.
Mendoza was the second of Tatum's squad members to testify in the hearing. Earlier Tuesday, Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz testified that Tatum, almost two months after the killings, voiced disapproval over how the U.S. was waging war and wished troops had more leeway to shoot.
Tatum poked fun at a squad member who asked permission before shooting and said he thought the war should be fought the way it was in Biblical scriptures, «where you just go in the city and kill every living thing,» said Dela Cruz.
Dela Cruz said that he recalled Tatum entering an Iraqi home near the bomb site where Marines had found more than $5,000 in U.S. currency and suggested that the money should be sent to the family of their fallen comrade to pay for a funeral.
"I think he was serious," Dela Cruz said. Tatum did not take the money in the end.
Tatum's attorney on Monday said the Marine believed he was following procedure by confronting a threat with deadly force.
The squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, is charged with murdering 18 Iraqis. His preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 22.
After the Article 32 investigation, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, a hearing officer will recommend whether Tatum should face court-martial. The final decision, however, rests with Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who is overseeing the case.
Associated Press writer Thomas Watkins contributed to this report.
Tatum poked fun at a squad member who asked permission before shooting and said he thought the war should be fought the way it was in Biblical scriptures, «where you just go in the city and kill every living thing,» said Dela Cruz.
Dela Cruz said that he recalled Tatum entering an Iraqi home near the bomb site where Marines had found more than $5,000 in U.S. currency and suggested that the money should be sent to the family of their fallen comrade to pay for a funeral.
The stuff about the $5000 bucks is irrelevant. It is exactly the kind of talk that we'd hear with any group of soldiers. A buddy had been killed, there was money, and he said where it "should" have gone. I guess a conversation is illegal??? Besides that, he's right to think of a buddy's family.
So far as desiring Rules of Engagement that allow a man to feel safer, I would fully expect someone to want to have that conversation, too.
For Pete's sake, if every chaplain had to spill his guts about what battlefield troops had told them, they share a lot about how these guys think it's WRONG for them to get killed when they've got families, wives, kids, hopes and dreams awaiting them back home.
WRONG TO DIE....it's UNETHICAL to allow yourself to be killed because of others and yourself hoping you come home.
I hate what's happening to these guys.
All they want to do is to be able to come home. And to say, "women and kids can kill you, too" is the truth. They can.
The one almost witness from Haditha said that she had to cover her ears because she knew ahead of time that the IED would go off. The families in those houses had been prepped by the insurgents. Amazing.
As e-mailed, please help Don find post 30 above.