Marine Says Rules Were Followed [Haditha]

A sergeant who led a squad of Marines during the incident in Haditha, Iraq, that left as many as 24 civilians dead said his unit did not intentionally target any civilians, followed military rules of engagement and never tried to cover up the shootings, his lawyer said.

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told his attorney that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house.

A corporal with the unit leaned over to Wuterich and said he saw the shots coming from a specific house, and after a discussion with the platoon leader, they decided to clear the house, according to Wuterich's account.

Although it was almost immediately apparent to the Marines that the people dead in the room were men, women and children -- most likely civilians -- they also noticed a back door ajar and believed that insurgents had slipped through to a house nearby, Puckett said.

At one point, they saw a man in all-black clothing running from one of the houses they had searched. The Marines killed him, Puckett said.

They then noticed another man in all black scurrying between two houses across the street. When they went to investigate, the Marines found a courtyard filled with women and children and asked where the man was, Puckett said.

When the civilians pointed to a third house, the Marines attempted to enter and found a man with an AK-47 inside, flanked by three other men; the first Marine to enter tried to fire his weapon, but it jammed, Puckett said. The Marines then killed those four men.

>>>More details that differ greatly from Mr. Murtha's account of that day.<<<

Yeah, well...Murtha and Kerry served in Vietnam. So your gonna believe some Sgt. grunt that says it was different because he was in Haditha?

[/sarcasm]

Sorting through events surrounding Marines at Haditha could be difficult. Next day video and much testimony came from Taher Thabet, an entrepreneurial journalist and human-right advocate, who lives adjacent the houses and IED explosion. In each house a young girl was the sole survivor. Safa Younis (13) and Iman Walid (10) calmly, objectively related the murders of seven members each of their families to ABC and ITV news respectively. All other witnesses are Iraqi locals, who by choice or coercion confirmed terrible events as insurgents within Haditha regularly reinforce their ascendancy with beheadings at the Haqlania Bridge. These testimonies arise within a culture accustomed to evaluating as cunning and calculating wisdom many statements Westerners would regard as lies. U.S. military and civilian leaders can confirm or deny little information, because any charges could be dismissed under doctrine of command influence.

We can rely on Representative Murtha to provide clarity for this event. Service on the applicable House committee provides Murtha access to confidential reports corresponding to grand jury testimony in civilian trials. He will select for news conferences the correct passages to share with us. Should any confusion remain, we can count of the alphabet new services to further distill into sound bites and images an unshakeable vision, easily withstanding any later contradictory revelations.

Let's see....the media tells one story.

The Marines tell quite a different story.

The media long ago ruined any credibility they ever might have had.

The Marines are a very honorable institution.

So, which one do we believe? ;-)

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