First public disclosure! An illustrated highlight from the LCpl Sharratt hearing

Bumbling NCIS agents have been on horrifyingly hilarious display in the Haditha hearings. It was clear to anyone watching LCpl Justin Sharratt's hearing that he should never have been charged in the first place.

A highlight (or lowlight, depending on your point-of-view) was the testimony of NCIS Special Agent Mark Platt. You can read his entire testimony here. Or just enjoy one of the best moments of testimony by a real-life Inspector Clouseau below (with my comments in italics).

I think the NCIS agent, Platt, made a mistake saying HIS interviews took place 10 days after the deaths in November. But he does refer to another NCIS group and their photos. It was never explained who these agents were, when were they deployed, what were the pictures of. If they were in the area right after the incident occurred, why pray tell, did they not report a “massacre”? If it was much later, say early March when Chiarelli wanted an investigation begun, that’s a different story.

My question - was there a team of NCIS agents early on, in November, 2005, and what did their report say if there was such a team?

For reference, the basic timeline is...

November 19: The day of the incident.

November 20: A 43-year-old Iraqi named Thaer Thabit al-Hadithi videotapes bodies at the local morgue, people wailing, and inside the homes of the dead Iraqi civilians. He then sits on the videotape for four months.

February 10: A Time magazine reporter contacts military sources in Baghdad about the circumstances of the Haditha incident.

February 14: Army Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, appoints Army Col. Gregory Watt to head a preliminary investigation into the Haditha deaths.

I don't see Platt testifying that there might have been an NCIS team in Haditha that early. He says...

Below 00159...

A. Prior to our arrival at house four, we had no photographs from that house. The previous team of NCIS agents that had deployed out into that area [no date given], for whatever reason, the photographs that they took at house four somehow were compromised. So they had nothing; nothing on the outside, nothing on the inside, nothing of the area adjacent to house four. So we made the determination that we were going to go to house four first, being that we had nothing from that house.

Q. Do you remember what approximate day and month this was?

A. Right at the end of March. It was probably around 28, 29 March.

About the earlier photos, he mentions the Marine's civil affairs team (this is below 190)...

Q. Do you know whether Major Hyatt was present on 19 November in that home?

A. I do not know. I know that the civil affairs officer had gone to houses one and two on one day. And it wasn't until several days later that he was made aware of houses three and four. I can't recall exactly whether he had visited that residence prior to us being there, no. I know that we did not have photographs from Major Hyatt of house four prior to us processing it.

Q. Did you know that at the time Sergeant Laughner had been to the home on 19 November after the events had occurred where people were shot?

A. I don't recall exactly when I was made aware of that. However, we did not have his photographs prior to going to that house. We had photographs that were taken by -- excuse me, I don't recall. It was a younger Marine, a lower ranking Marine, a PFC, I believe. I don't recall his name. If I heard it, I might remember it. But we had his photographs, and that was about it.

That's my reading of events.

Here's a bit from Washington Post, January 7, 2007:

One Marine who decided to hold onto the photographs made it certain that officials would have a clearer view of what happened that day. Lance Cpl. Andrew A. Wright, who arrived on the scene after the violence to care for the bodies, took photographs of the dead and kept a full set.

"I decided that it was in my best interest to obtain the photos I had taken that night," Wright told investigators. "Even though there was no investigation at the time, I felt that the photographs would be evidence if anything came up in the future. In my opinion, the people that I photographed had been murdered."

Because the killings in Haditha were not investigated until four months afterward -- initially, Marine officers decided the shootings did not appear out of the norm -- the photographs are in some cases the only hard evidence. Officials are hoping to use them to reconstruct the events because they have not been able to exhume the Iraqi victims' bodies.

NCIS officials are comparing the images with the Marines' statements about what happened.

Investigators have found 44 photographs that a civil affairs officer took in the days after the incident as part of an effort to make condolence payments to the families of the dead. The pictures show pockmarked walls and bloodstained floors.

Investigators also found video from an unmanned aircraft that was aloft in the region that day, but it began recording after the first reports of a roadside bomb and the initial shootings, according to the documents. The video shows Marines conducting door-to-door searches, according to an intelligence officer's statement.

Defense lawyers for four Marines who have been charged with murder in the killings said they believe it will be hard to prove anything based on the photographs alone, other than that the Marines killed the people while hunting for insurgents. The Marines have told investigators that they were following their rules of engagement.

Marine Corps officials believe that many of the photographs -- which show the results of grenade explosions inside civilian homes and close-range rifle shots -- are inflammatory by their nature, no matter whether a crime was committed. Investigators have gone to great lengths to keep them private. It is possible that even the most grim images will surface publicly in military court proceedings.

Maybe I’m wrong but if The NCIS were investigating this incident ten days after it happened, then they knew more about it then The two Iraqi “Human Rights” activists (one of whom was locked up during the incident) did before they approached McGirk with videos and even before any other sort of investigation was suggested through the chain of command and even before Murtha said these Marines killed in cold blood....

The Thought then occurs to me at least that they could have orchestrated the actions of the Iraqis “Human Rights activists”, McGirk, and Murtha or at least had a hand in feeding them this story until it grew some legs.

cobra-I'm glad you caught this! I keep wondering if I'm reading it wrong.

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