I suspect whatever killings occurred were perpetrated by terrorists wearing counterfeit US uniforms. This theory is supported by the fact, reported by the media in the run-up to the liberation of Iraq, that Saddam had accumulated a number of counterfeit US uniforms to be used by his people in a number of ways. Committing atrocities and then framing US troops for them in terrorist controlled areas would be a perfect way to use such uniforms. This would be particularly effective if the alleged witnesses were already terrorists themselves or terrorist sympathizers and the people who were killed were suspected supporters of the liberation and their families. Such tactics are certainly not beneath Saddam and the terrorists; indeed they are the very things they would love to do. They are also the very kind of things traitors like Murtha and the MSM would love to use to discredit the entire war effort. Before anyone even suspects those Marines of this group of killings, this hypothesis must be fully checked out and disproved.
Thank you for this post!
I don't argue with your suspicion at all. It may well be under investigation. We just don't know.
I never even thought of this.
I suspect some Iraqi army guys did the killings and maybe the military is (or was )trying to keep it quiet. This might be why there was (evidently) a false report of the incident.
Residents of Haditha were repeatedly warned to get out, that a convoy of forces were coming through. Repeatedly warned...since October 2005 in fact.
And those Marines were taking fire after the explosion, at least according to the Time mag story. Even the anti-American Haditha citizens admit this.
Even with all the warnings, and that morning when this all occurred, were warned yet again. Yet one fine grandpapa keeps his family there, including his two young children. They all huddled in their parlor reading the Koran once the explosion and shooting began.
Which is what we all do of course when horrific explosions and shooting erupts around us. We gather our grandchildren and go into the living room, with a handy window, and read the Koran.
The grandmother and grandfather were killed during this incident, but the two children and a baby were not. Those Marines didn't go nuts and start shooting everybody in sight. Somebody was shooting at them and perhaps in the effort to stop it some innocents got killed. Innocents that the terrorists love to gather round them just so they can shoot and kill American Marines with no reprisals.
Hey, I don't know. A beloved Marine buddy was split in half by the explosion and bullets were being fired.
It was war damn it, in an urban environment.
Anyway, if the MSM and the leftoids go nuts enough, the above is something along the lines of how I think the President should handle this.
I have a foreboding in my gut that Haditha could be the incident, however manufactured and hyped by our own congress critters, that makes us lose the Iraq war.
I desperately want to be wrong.
Those were my first thoughts. Many FReepers, myself included, don't watch TV or read MSM, but I'll bet the terrorists do!
OK, so explain this part:
First official report "concluded" that the Iraqis civilians were killed by the IED.
A subsequent investigation concluded that the Iraqis were killed by gunfire.
Gunshot and shrapnel wounds look very different from one another.
So how did the terrorists get the Marine commander to submit a false report up his chain of command?
I am really at a loss, wondering why this hasn't come up yet. I've mentioned it a couple times in these threads. Doesn't ANYONE remember the attacks in Haditha in the months leading up to this? I haven't forgotten.
This article tells some of it. Please pay particular attention to the fifth paragraph, and please make a mental note that weapons were seized in that attack.
14 Marines Die in Huge Explosion in Western Iraq
Week's Toll Rises to 21 For Ohio-Based Regiment
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 4, 2005; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Aug. 3 -- A Marine Reserve company that was known as "Lucky Lima" before suffering heavy casualties in May was hit Wednesday by the deadliest roadside bombing of the Iraq war, a massive explosion that killed 14 Marines and the unit's Iraqi interpreter, according to witnesses and military spokesmen.
~~~~
Rolling in armored vehicle after armored vehicle, the patrol was nearing the entrance to the town when a brilliant flash erupted in the middle of the convoy.
"Huge fire and dust rose from the place of the explosion," said Saad Mijbil, a motorist who said he witnessed the bombing and was later hospitalized with bullet wounds sustained in the chaotic aftermath.
~~~
The bomb blew apart the personnel carrier, known as an Amtrac, and ignited its load of fuel and explosives. Though he was 80 yards away, Mijbil said, the blast was strong enough to have broken the rear window of his pickup truck.
~~~ Gunmen killed at least five members of the regiment on a foot patrol Monday outside Haditha, the U.S. military said, and the body of a sixth Marine was found a mile or two from the firefight. The same day, a suicide bomber killed a Marine in the town of Hit, about 45 miles from Haditha, the military said.
~~~
"These terrorists and insurgents will use brutal tactics because they're trying to shake the will of the United States of America," Bush said. "They want us to retreat."
~~~
Haditha has been the scene of repeated attacks on the 3/25. Four Marines were killed in a firefight this spring at the town's hospital, where insurgents fired from behind patients, Marines said.
~~~
Residents of the towns along the Euphrates typically tell Marines that the only insurgents in their area are foreign fighters. Contacted by telephone in Haditha on Wednesday, however, some residents celebrated the bombing -- which apparently inflicted no civilian casualties -- even as they braced for retaliation.
"Me, I'm very happy with this operation, and it's the same for the people here," said Nour Ahmed, 35, an employee of a government-run industry. "But at the same time, we're afraid of the Marine reaction in the coming hours."
~~~~
Mijbil, the motorist who spoke by cell phone from his hospital bed, said he was injured when survivors in the U.S. convoy searched the neighborhood. Mijbil said he ducked under the steering wheel of his pickup, fearing that the Americans would mistake him for a bomber. A Marine sprinting past his truck apparently did just that, Mijbil said, and shot him six times through the door.
It was impossible to independently confirm his account Wednesday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/03/AR2005080300377_2.html