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Here’s the Slimes take on today’s hearing. Interesting info about how the NCIS conducted the interviews (no tape recorder- she forgot to buy one at the base). But -surprise, surprise - not one mention of Justin’s lie detector test results or the failure of NCIS to do even the most basic of investigations regarding the “civilians’.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/us/13haditha.html

Chickenhawk, I posted this to Red and Girlene. I figure I would make it public..So here goes.
Mannle was conducting a group interview of the Iraqi’s in House 3, while another agent, Maloney was doing a forensic reconstruction in House 4. Mannle went to Maloney in House 4 and told Agent maloney that the story the women and boy gave her in House 3 did not coincide with what the Marines stated. Mannle told Maloney that the women and boy told her the Iraqi men in house 4 were killed execution style.(Maloney had a tape recorder and was taping the conversation and his forensic reconstruction) Maloney then told her his forensic reconstruction didn’t suggest an execution style killing. Maloney told her THE MARINES WERE NOT IN CONTROL OF HOUSE 4. He said there was a struggle in house 4 and the blood patterns did not suggest execution-style killing. This recording was played for the IO. Our defense team had it. Mannle knew that Maloney had the recording device. Jim Culp then proceeded to sketch out the blood patterns for the agent Platt. This evidence will be presented in detail when Agent Maloney testifies sometime this week. Yes, Mannle wants to believe the story of the Iraqi’s over our Marines. She fell on her face today.

Darryl Sharratt

The irony of the NY Times article, "U.S. Inquiry Hampered by Iraq Violence, Investigators Say" is simply hilarious.

Two naval investigators testified at a military hearing here on Tuesday that their inquiry into allegations that marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 was hampered by insurgent bombs and gunfire as well as the absence of basic equipment like tape recorders.

Wait a minute. I thought there weren't any insurgents in Haditha?

Nayda Mannle, a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said she had conducted a hurried group interview of six relatives of the men killed three months earlier, rapidly jotting notes of the translation of their overlapping responses as American troops stood outside, ready to fend off any attack by enemy fighters.

Another N.C.I.S. agent, Mark Platt, said he could not complete one interview of Iraqi witnesses in Haditha because the conversation was “cut short by small-arms fire.”

And then at the end of the article, As the marines hustled investigators from the home, a roadside bomb blew up nearby, Ms. Mannle said.

Let's see, you've got enemy fighters, small-arms fire, and an IED all during the one hour that this Laurel and Hardy team were "investigating". Nope, no insurgents in that neighborhood. I wonder if the dynamic duo got the point? Sheesh.

From the NY Times ariticle, She {Nayda Mannle} did not record the interview, she said, because she could not find a recorder, but when pressed by Mr. Culp, she said she never sought to buy one from the post exchange.

Maybe she should have asked this guy, Thaer Thabet, al-Hadithi, the budding journalist. He lives right in the neighborhood, has a great video camera with sound. I'm sure he would have loved to help Ms. Nayda Mannle.