One Morning in HadithaU.S. Marines killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes last November. Was it self-defense, an accident or cold-blooded revenge?
A TIME exclusive
By TIM MCGIRK/ BAGHDAD
Mar. 27, 2006
The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq. On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communiqué from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other...
Dr. Wahid, director of the local hospital in Haditha, who asked that his family name be withheld because, he says, he fears reprisals by U.S. troops, says the Marines brought 24 bodies to his hospital around midnight on Nov. 19. Wahid says the Marines claimed the victims had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb. "But it was obvious to us that there were no organs slashed by shrapnel," Wahid says. "The bullet wounds were very apparent. Most of the victims were shot in the chest and the head--from close range."
U.S. Launches Another Major Assault in Western Iraq
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 4, 2005; 11:03 AMBAGHDAD, Oct. 4 — The U.S. military Tuesday launched a second major assault in less than a week on cities in western Iraq in a hunt for foreign fighters whose attacks have increased in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 15 national referendum on a new Iraqi constitution.
About 2,500 U.S. troops and hundreds of Iraqi soldiers took part in the operation, codenamed River Gate, the military said in statements. The offensive centered on Haditha, Haqlaniyah and Barwana, Sunni cities located in the Euphrates River valley in western Anbar province. Meanwhile, Operation Iron Fist, another assault launched four days ago in the Qaimregion of Anbar province near the Iraqi-Syrian border continued, as troops searched for fighters connected to al Qaeda in Iraq who freely roamed the streets of Sadah and surrounding towns…
Mohammed Hadithi, the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society in Haditha, charged the U.S. troops violated the rights of residents during the assault. The Marines “neglected the humanitarian standards,” he said. “If the American people come and see the army they are proud of doing that to unarmed women and children, they would have disowned the army because those they are looking for have escaped hours before they came and attacked.”
His accusation could not independently verified.
At Haditha Hospital, Dr. Abdul Qaider Obaidi, said the Marines also broke into the hospital and searched the facility, arresting the director, Waleed Hadeethi and his assistant. Obaidi said the Marines accused the two men of treating al Qaeda fighters. “They are using the hospital as a base for the combat operations,” he added. Obaidi said he had no information about civilian casualties.
The American military said militants attacked the Haditha Hospital earlier this year with a suicide car bomb. More than half of the hospital was destroyed in the attack. Insurgents established fortified firing positions in the hospital and used patients and staff as human shields, the military said in a statement. “They attacked Marines from the hospital and later retreated from the Marine counterattack,” according to the statement…
This is the same guy. The reporter (Spinner) clearly mixed up the names. The doctor’s should be Waleed Obaidi, which is one of the many ways our hero spells his name.