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 ...
In the mean time .. Murtha and the liberals want to paint the ENTIRE Marine Corp as bad and evil
@@@@@@
They are salivating in their expectation of another My Lai. They have been waiting for anything that they could compare to My Lai since April 9, 2003, if not Oct 10, 2001.
I was dismayed to hear Tony's response on that also for the same reason. Accurate or not, not a good answer.
"Let me see if I get this..A Marine officer was relieved of his command, his career ruined, because of comments his men made to an imbedded reporter..?"
Sometimes, the world really is a ridiculous place.
Btw, nice tagline.
Thanks..
But Coop - briefed by Time as Tony reported? The reporter asked "when" was the President briefed? Tony could have just given the date. Don't get me wrong - I love Tony but he's not going to be the "perfection".
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said President Bush learned of the killings only after a reporter from Time magazine asked questions. Time published an article in March that said the Pentagon was investigating the incident. 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." Bush was briefed on the incident and investigation by his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, Snow said. He would not detail Bush's personal involvement since.
What exactly is wrong with this answer? I have no heartburn at all over it. Then again, I'm the kind of person who doesn't want a President involved in operational details of military engagements.
Professional judgement from a Lance Corporal. Coop - I thought you Marines were more thoroughly trained in ROI with the media. ;>)
I would like to see Murtha's military record. He's a donk attack dog...he's hiding something IMO.
Back in the day [wiping salt off shoulder]...
:-) Yeah, we were trained.
"Thank you, but I'll have to refer you to Public Affairs."
Yes, but his word as a defense attorney is now gold to those who want to treat this story as made up from whole cloth.
That's true as far as it goes (and it goes for Army, Navy and Air Force commands as well), but the common use meaning of the term "relieved of Command" carries the implication that the officer relieved was relieved prior to completion of the normal term of an assignment. Sitting around the bar in the officer's club, or the NCO club for that matter, you wouldn't say "Jack was relieved of command in Company K today" if he was relieved at a Change of Command ceremony prior to going to his next assignment in the ordinary course, you'd say something like "Jack handed K Company over to Fred this afternoon." You'd be more likely to hear "relieved" in the context "The Old Man was so pissed at the state of the motor pool, he relieved Lt. Numnuts on the spot" or "After those recruits complained to the IG and their Congressman about getting yelled at in Basic, two company commanders and about a dozen drill sargents were relieved."
Close examination of John Kerry's record was revealing and helped keep him out of the White House. Maybe there is something in Murtha's record that should be exposed. How does one go about such an examination?
As a former cop, I'll say this much: when someone's mouthpiece says that their client isn't a target of an investigation, their client has a 50% chance of getting indicted.
If the initial report said one thing, and later investigation said something else, then at least one commissioned officer is going to get hammered.
Those were my first thoughts. Many FReepers, myself included, don't watch TV or read MSM, but I'll bet the terrorists do!
Maybe yes, maybe not. Given the speed at which information flows to the press and the agenda behind it it is hard to say.
New standing order for all Marine officers. "No person under your command will speak to the press under any circumstances without the questions being vetted in advance and a public affairs officer or the unit commander present".
I wonder how the press would like them apples!
Thank you for making that clear! BUMP
If you have US military out there rampaging and killing kids, then that wouldn't rate as "something that happened" like a stray bomb that went of course 100 feet.
Completely depends on whether or not it was intentional. I remember sitting in the giant sandbox when Desert Storm began (the air assault). It was simply amazing listening to the radio transmissions on operational military frequencies. I heard reports of the entire Iraqi air force being destroyed (not true), the entire Republican Guard being wiped out (we all laughed that one off), and others less egregious errors one can expect during the fog of war. Nobody corrected them on the 'Net, and I'm quite sure nobody's career was ruined.
If, however, reports were falsified...
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