Sites should have never release that footage. I agree, he’s living on borrowed time.
Posted on 11/17/2004 9:02:43 AM PST by areafiftyone
WASHINGTON -- The Marine who shot and apparently killed a wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Fallujah on Saturday has been removed from the battlefield for questioning, and U.S. commanders in Iraq said they were bracing for a wave of outrage in the Middle East after the airing of the videotaped shooting.
Senior military officials and human rights advocates, including those often critical of the armed services, cautioned that the graphic videotape of the shooting, taken by pool correspondent Kevin Sites of NBC News, left many questions unanswered and underscored the confusion of urban warfare.
Agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service have taken over the inquiry, a senior Pentagon official said, and will determine whether the Marine believed he was acting in self-defense when he yelled that the Iraqi was only pretending to be dead and fired at the body.
It is unclear from watching an unedited version of the video tape whether the prisoner was moving before the shot. A senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that an autopsy might be required to help determine whether the man was dead or alive when the Marine shot him.
The inquiry will also have to determine what happened to the other Iraqis in the room. Some of them, according to the initial NBC report, appeared to be dead or dying when Sites entered with a group of Marines, joining other Marines who were already there. He has suggested that the other Iraqis may have been shot just before he entered, according to The Associated Press.
On Tuesday, Sites declined to elaborate on what he had seen.
After the on-camera shooting, Marines pointed their guns at another prone Iraqi who was reaching out weakly with one hand, but they backed off without shooting at him, the videotape showed.
The initial NBC report said that the Iraqis, all of whom had been wounded in fighting on Friday and then had been disarmed and left in the mosque, did not appear to be threatening, and that there were no weapons visible in the room.
The incident captured in the NBC report unfolded as members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division entered the unidentified mosque in Fallujah on Saturday. Sites reported that Marines from a different unit had attacked the building Friday after coming under fire, killing 10 insurgents and wounding five others.
The Marines treated the wounded Friday, took their weapons and then left, Sites reported. On Saturday, another group of Marines, accompanied by Sites, entered the mosque, but it is unclear how many of the Iraqis were still alive then.
"Obviously, the shooting of an incapacitated detainee is a fundamental violation of the Law of Armed Conflict," said James D. Ross, senior legal adviser to Human Rights Watch. "But if someone feigns being incapacitated or killed, and then uses that to trick someone and shoot them, that's a war crime, and might justify the shooting."
Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the top Marine officer in Iraq, promised a thorough investigation.
saying in a statement, "We follow the Law of Armed Conflict and hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability."
Other senior officers, while not defending the Marine's actions, said that there had been instances in Fallujah in which insurgent corpses had been booby-trapped and that some fighters wore vests with explosives for possible suicide attacks if they came into contact with Americans.
"It is hard for anyone to imagine the stress of urban combat -- the fatigue, the threat, the noise, the filth, the death," a senior Marine officer said Tuesday. "But if the incident turns out to have occurred as it appeared in the video, then it is inexcusable. Understandable perhaps, but not excusable."
Florian Westphal, a spokesman for the International Committee for the Red Cross, said it was not clear what had happened in the mosque, based solely on the videotape.
"We cannot, on the basis of TV images, no matter how disturbing and disconcerting they are, arrive at a judgment about an incident," Westphal told AP "We were not on the spot, so we cannot be aware of all the circumstances."
As Marine commanders in Iraq rushed to learn details of the shooting incident, Al-Jazeera broadcast the unedited version of the footage, complete with a name visible on one Marine's backpack and the faces of the Marines, which were not shown on American networks.
Several commanders voiced concern that no matter what the inquiry determines, the incident had handed the Iraqi insurgency a huge propaganda victory, and this after commanders said they had gone to extraordinary lengths in the battle of Fallujah to avoid civilian casualties.
The situation in the videotape appears to resemble two earlier incidents in Iraq. One, in Kufa last May, resulted in charges of murder and dereliction of duty against an officer in the Army's 1st Armored Division.
In that incident, Capt. Rogelio M. Maynulet shot the wounded driver of the militant Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Maynulet then told a fellow officer that the man was so badly wounded, with part of his skull blown away, that he had shot him out of compassion.
On Monday, the Army's 1st Cavalry Division announced that 2nd Lt. Erick J. Anderson of the 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, had been charged with murder in the death of a 16-year-old Iraqi, who had been badly wounded in Baghdad on Aug. 18.
Sites should have never release that footage. I agree, he’s living on borrowed time.
MY MY MY he does promote himself doesn't he??? EGOMANIAC???
If the enemy chooses to use this tactic then their wounded are fair game.
I hope Sites finds a boobytrapped terrorist.
Sometimes even a terrorist can get the drop on a warrior. To use self-defense as an argument here is perfectly valid. The Marine defended himself by taking aggressive action.
My bet is that they will find that the kid had less than 12 hours of sleep over a five day period...and was mostly mentally exhausted. For years, this scenario has been played over and over...and people (even pilots) can't operate at realistic mental capacity with a average of 3 hours or less of sleep per day. Take a stripe away from the kid....sent him to mental eval...and then welcome him back after six months. He's a great lesson upon other members of the corps on what can happen when you aren't thinking. He should not get jail time...its simply a total waste.
NBC reporter, Kevin Sites has a lot to answer for...this is unecessary anti-troop propaganda. Whose side is he on? The beheaders?
When one side ignores the law of war and pulls the kind of crap those Fallujah dirtbags are pulling, it inevitably drags even the good guys down a bit. A message needs to be sent that we don't routinely condone that type of action, but I don't want to see anything bad happen to that Marine, either. He's doing his job, and its not a pretty place in which to be doing it.
I've been rather pleasantly surprised by the number of people at my work, even liberals, who won't condemn this kid. I think they get it.
He's a rogue photographer. He is on the side that can give him the best coverage, IMHO.
Being charged with murder for killing the enemy in war!!??
The world has gone crazy.
Mr. Sites:
Shame on you. The Marines allowed you to go on their patrols with them. They would have protected you with their lives. Instead, you betrayed their trust by sending the video of the incident in controversy to your headquarters rather than immediate Marine headquarters.
You sir, are a traitor to the marines that protected you while you were on the job. You're not a "journalist" , but a propagandist.
Should you, by some misfortune, become lost during one of these patrols and become a hostage of the Muslims, remember that those of us that have worn the uniform of this country will consider your demise at the hand of the enemy as "Battlefield Justice".
Regrettably,
(name witheld on FR Forum)
U.S.Army, 1967-1973
Petition In Support Of Fallujah Marine! SIGN IT. SEND IT! PASS IT!!
1351 signatures to date. We need a lot more!
He should not become a hostage. The Marines around him should just stop warning him about dangerous situations such as snipers, boobytraps, landmines, rooms full of terrorists that haven't been cleared, etc. It's all a matter of watching your buddy's back and reciprocity.
Good point. Let’s also keep in mind that a) the guy the Marine shot was a non-uniformed combatant (i.e. a terrorist) and b) was operating out of a known sanctuary (a mosque). Either of these facts combined with the circumstances at hand placed him outside of the protection of international law, which addresses only the rights of uniformed enemy combatants. Our Marine had every right to shoot the guy, as the upcoming investigation will prove.
The “reporter” who made the tape is openly hostile to the current war effort and has stated so publicly on numerous occasions. Why the DoD allows such “reporters” (or, indeed, any members of the news media at all) to accompany our forces in battle is a mystery to me.
Was he a prisoner, I heard nothing to indicate that. He was hiding, pretending to be dead, but was he surrendering?
Is there anything we can do to help him.
Major Dittos!!!
They better think twice before taking action; young men who have not yet enlisted are watching. Why should they even enlist if this sort of thing is allowed to happen?
I am not as forgiving as you.
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