Posted on 12/06/2006 5:41:01 AM PST by RedRover
Washington — At least five Marines are expected to be charged, possibly as early as today with the killing of 24 Iraqis, many of them unarmed women and children, in the village of Haditha in November 2005, according to a Marine official and a lawyer involved in the case.
The charges are expected to range from negligent homicide to murder, said a senior Pentagon official familiar with the military's nearly nine-month investigation into the episode. Several Marines from the 3rd Platoon of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, are accused of killing the villagers after a roadside explosion killed one of their comrades.
Charges could also be brought against an additional one or two Marines, the Marine official said, including one officer who was in the vicinity of the killings but did not participate in them.
Though it was nearly certain that Marines would be charged with crimes for the killings, exactly when the charges would be made official was unclear. But charges could closely follow a closed-door briefing by Lt. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, the Marine Corps deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations, to the House Armed Services Committee this morning.
That briefing will relate the findings of a military inquiry into how the Marine Corps managed its investigation of the slayings which began with an inquiry in March, four months after the killings occurred, the Pentagon official said. Aides to committee members said that Marine officials promised a confidential briefing before any charges were announced.
According to the Marine official and the defense lawyer representing one of the Marines under investigation, criminal charges will be filed against Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, of Meriden, Conn., the squad's leader; Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, 25, of Edmund, Okla.; Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, 21, of Carbondale, Penn.; Cpl. Sanick Dela Cruz, 24, of Chicago; and Cpl. Hector Salinas, 22, of Houston.
The five Marines are said to have been the ones who killed the 24 Iraqis, including five men in a taxi that approached the Marines' convoy after the explosion that killed a 20-year-old lance corporal, and 19 other civilians in several houses nearby. About 10 of the dead were women and children who appeared to have been killed by rifle fire at close range, military officials said.
The Marines have said they believed that they were coming under small-arms fire from a house on the south side of the road.
Jack Zimmermann, a lawyer for Tatum, said his client had responded appropriately to a lethal attack in a dangerous region of Iraq. “There was no crime committed,” Zimmermann said.
Mark Zaid, a lawyer representing Wuterich, said his client acted in accordance with military rules of engagement.
“We emphatically deny that Staff Sergeant Wuterich participated in any unlawful killings that day in Haditha,” Zaid said. “The collateral civilian deaths were absolutely tragic, but occurred as a result of legally justified actions that routinely occur during time of war.”
Lawyers for the other three enlisted Marines declined to comment.
The senior Pentagon official said that no other Marines would face charges in the case. “The only people who will be charged with an offense will be those individuals who did the shootings,” the official said last week.
But the Marine officer, interviewed on Tuesday, said that he expected charges to be brought against one or two additional Marines, including one officer.
“I don't see just five of them being charged,” the official said. “I see six or seven. One of them, I see, is an officer.”
That officer, the Marine official said, was First Lt. William T. Kallop, 25, the only officer at the scene, who arrived sometime after the initial explosion that led to the Marines' sweep of the nearby homes.
A lawyer for Kallop declined to comment Tuesday.
Liberals believe in "international law". On examination, this doesn't mean law created by a legislative, representive body. It means declarations by fruitbats who represent global elite opinion.
On top of that, since the days of the Nuremberg Trials, the concept of a "war crime" has been so watered down that now any act of war can be defined as a "crime".
Lastly, if Iraq is Vietnam, there needed to be a Mai Lie. This is why Chris Matthews practically jumped out of his chair with excitement when askng Murtha if Haditha was another Mai Lie (of course Murtha said it was).
So now we have a sizeable chunk of the population who believes in fake laws for crimes that weren't committed during an atrocity that never took place.
On places such as Daily Kos, DU, etc., the liberals are salivating over President Bush being dragged off to the Hague at any moment. And you can be sure that he (and Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice) will be harrassed with "international" subpeonas for the rest of their lives. If, as Yogi Berra might say, they live that long.
By themselves, the liberal moonbats have little power. But when the mass media represents their viewpoints, the moonbats should not be underestimated.
US military prepares Haditha murder case charges
WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. military is expected to charge at least five U.S. Marines in the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, and the charges could include murder, defense officials said on Wednesday.
It was not known when the charges would come down but a Marine Corps official said it would not happen on Wednesday.
A Marine Corps general will brief members of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee behind closed doors on Wednesday morning about the military's months-long investigation of the case.
U.S. Marines have been accused of killing unarmed Iraqis in Haditha in November 2005. It is one of a series of cases in which U.S. troops have been suspected, and some convicted, of being involved in the murder of Iraqi civilians.
Two investigations were initiated into the Haditha case -- a murder inquiry and a probe into the Marines' procedures after the killings.
Under the murder inquiry, military criminal investigators have reviewed evidence indicating Marines deliberately shot to death the Iraqi civilians, according to a Pentagon official. The investigation into the military's response found Marine officers failed to respond properly to the conflicting reports of the killings, another official said.
Defense attorneys for some of the accused Marines have said their clients followed military rules of engagement and believed they were under attack when they fired.
>Can't win a war like this.<
No. Whoever is calling the shots for the U.S. these days is definitely not on our side. When does the protest begin? And who do we protest? The enemy, even in America, does not wear a uniform. God bless and protect our Marines in this outrageous debacle!
Amen.
Amen, ma. Beautiful post.
?unintended consequences ?
Thanks for the ping.
I'm with you, Brit. I can only imagine the pain the families of the Marines are going through. They must truly feel like the world has turned against them.
Great pic with deep meaning behind it. Pershing surely was a man of God in his own way. Patton looked up to him like a son does his father.
It's not over yet.
Still praying for these men.
This is bullcrap.
What kind of a##hole is pushing this?
If we're indicting Marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors for killing civilians, let's go back to WWII, Korea and Vietnam and indict a minimum 100,000 veterans.
This is sick. Our country is sick.
Quoting Captain Willard from the supposedly anti-war film "Apocalypse Now":
"..charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500."
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