Posted on 05/31/2006 6:20:21 AM PDT by Coop
... Snow said that he has been assured by the Pentagon that "all the details" will be made available...
Rep. John Murtha... has said Marines shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot others.
On Tuesday, [Snow] said President Bush learned of the killings only after a reporter from Time magazine asked questions...
Asked when Bush was first briefed about the events in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq, Snow replied Tuesday: "When a Time reporter first made the call."
According to the attorney for one of three Marine Corps officers relieved of command from a Marine battalion are not targets of investigations into whether their troops killed the civilians or tried to cover it up.
Meanwhile, Lance Cpl. James Crossan of North Bend, Wash., who was injured in the roadside bomb attack in Haditha, told a Seattle television station that some of the Marines might have snapped after seeing one of their own killed in action.
"So, I think they were just blinded by hate ... and they just lost control," Crossan told KING-TV, which aired the interview Tuesday.
The targets... are about a dozen enlisted Marines, according to Hackett, a Marine reservist and Iraqi war veteran who represents Kimber... [Hackett] said the highest ranking among those under investigation is a staff sergeant who led the four-vehicle convoy that was hit by the bomb.
Kimber... was relieved of command last month because his subordinates... used profanity and criticized the performance of Iraqi security services during an interview with Britain's Sky News TV...
...Hackett told The Associated Press by telephone. "He's not under investigation for anything related to what has played out in the press." [snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Thank you Coop. Was so angry didn't take the time to research Murtha. But all and all, I still feel the same
THe "my lae" comparisons tick me off. At worst, this is a couple of soldiers killing a couple of families -- a very bad thing, to be sure, but this isn't sending in a squadron to burn down an entire village.
I think that part of the problem is the language barrier. Maybe these houses had markings which suggested sympathy with insurgents. Maybe the soldiers saw someone run into the houses right after the blast (which would be the normal thing to do even if you weren't guilty) and assumed they had set off the blast. This wouldn't excuse them, but would put the idea of "cracking" into a different perspective.
When your enemy wears civilian clothes and sets off roadside bombs in residential areas, you are bound to get some civilians killed -- that's what the enemy wants, and why it is important for our government to investigate and present all the facts.
Murtha is a traitor. I say that NOT because he believed the report -- the report may well be true. I say that because he took something bad that a few of our troops may have done, and used it to smear the entire military, and as a political attack on the Commander in Chief.
I saw Weasley Clark on "the Factor" last night, trying to justify Murtha's use of this for political purposes,but Bill did a good job of shutting him down, even though it bothers me that Clark is a "military analyst" for the network, after running for President on the democrat ticket -- which proves he is a political person, not an unbiased military source.
Instead of his approach, IMHO you're approaching this tragic event quite rationally.
That much is known. The report sent up, supposedly based on on-scene investigation by the officer submitting it, differed greatly from what apparently happened.
When I was a cop, and a "witness" gave a statement that (a) made him look good and (b) differed greatly from the facts on the ground, the "witness" graduated to "suspect."
The other possibility is that the officer submitting it didn't actually do any investigating. If that is the case, that's also grounds for hanging him out to dry--he didn't do his job.
Also, when someone's mouthpiece says that his client isn't a target, it's even money that his client will be indicted.
To you have a link to that report? I read it, but can not find it right now.
How credible is this?
To finish my comment about Salim's testimony: She said that she and two others (an aunt and uncle, I think) survived - relatively unharmed - the alleged two grenades and close-up spraying with automatic weapons. Is that credible? If so, it was a very inept massacre.
If she was in the room when a grenade went off, I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I have absolutely no viable recollection of how I survived getting shot. The memories are scrambled, more a matter of impressions than actual recall of the event.
On that we disagree. We have not yet heard from the accused, except for a few little drips here and there. And those little drips so far have shed a different light on the story. To me very little is known except that something very bad happened at Haditha, which resulted in the deaths of a U.S. Marine, 8 or terrorists that we know of, and approx. 15 others.
Yes. The only rounds that count are the ones that hit.
If so, it was a very inept massacre.
Could be--which would give credence to the notion that it was a wilding type of event as opposed to being a preplanned part of the operation.
FWIW, my conjecture is that POS Murhta is pulling a classic diversion. He is chin-deep in illicit defense contractor money, and is beginning to hear footsteps. He has seen what happened to Duke Cunningham, and figures he is going to end up in disgrace. Afterall, Cunningham was a legitimate hero; Murtha was a ticket puncher his entire military career.
My hope is that the courts rapidly determine that the FBI had every right to search that scum, Jefferson's, congressional office, and they then turn their attentions to this crooked bastard from Ohio. That has to be Murtha's worst fear, and he knows members of his own family will join him in the clink when he is found out.
That he is willing to dishonor the entire Corps, in order to buy time and cover his sorry, abundant ass shows his desperation and his total lack of character.
Grenades must not pack the punch that I think they do, because I'd think that two grenades in a small room - capped off by automatic weapons fire - should take care of anyone in that room.
Which would not fit in well at all with preliminary reports of a five-hour engagement.
I recall when Reagan was pilloried for much of the same, and he had to defend himself against these constant attacks by saying that he was a delegator and a manager, not a micro manager.
It's really just a continuation of the same media and the same perspective. They try their best to nitpick and nibble like a thousand hungry ducks.
My thanks and support for your families service to the country, BTW! :-)
We have heard the report--and how it changed. As I said, that much is known--and it is, by any reasonable standard, probable cause.
The hard part comes now--finding out what really happened. And that's going to be an absolute freakshow dominated by the screaming match between Murtha et al on the left and the "see no evil, hear no evil" folks on the right.
But the officer who submitted the original report is toast, one way or another.
If a crime occured in Haditha in November 2005, that's one thing, and it's why we have a military justice system.
But if, as it appears, there was an attempt to cover up a crime, that's a whole 'nother ball game. If it was merely negligence in the performance of duties by the unit commander, it's just as serious.
They don't.
If someone else in the room provides a blast shadow, the people behind him won't even get a scratch.
But it still doesn't make the Haditha charges go away.
The "initial reports," in this case, were supposedly based on a post-battle walkthrough where they tagged and bagged the bodies, and stated that the IED killed the civilians, no gunfire.
A closer look found that those civilians mostly died of gunfire.
Do you begin to see the problem?
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