You are absolutely right, Chaplain. In the meantime I would ask everyone here to help if they can. I know many have already and that these Marines and their families are appreciative.
Haditha Marines you can do so by going to these sites.
Posted on 10/04/2007 3:22:21 AM PDT by RedRover
Official recommends Wuterich should be tried for negligent homicide in deaths of two women, five children
CAMP PENDLETON -- A Marine Corps official has recommended that murder charges be dismissed against a Camp Pendleton squad leader accused in the deaths of 17 civilians killed in the Iraqi city of Haditha two years ago.
The official, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, said in a recommendation obtained by the North County Times that rather than face murder charges, squad leader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich should be tried for the lesser offense of negligent homicide in the deaths of five children and two women.
Ware recommended 10 other murder charges against Wuterich be dismissed.
"I believe after reviewing all the evidence that no trier of fact can conclude Staff Sgt. Wuterich formed the criminal intent to kill," Ware wrote in reference to the women and children. "When a Marine fails to exercise due care and civilians die, the charge of negligent homicide, and not murder, is appropriate."
Ware's report, issued to prosecutors and defense attorneys this week, found the evidence against Wuterich contradictory. Ware's role as the case's investigating officer is akin to that of a judge presiding over a pretrial hearing.
"The case against Staff Sgt. Wuterich is simply not strong enough to conclude he committed murder beyond a reasonable doubt," Ware wrote. "Almost all witnesses have an obvious bias or prejudice."
Wuterich's attorneys were reviewing the report and were unavailable. Marine Corps policy dictates that officials and prosecutors do not comment on an investigating officer's findings.
The Haditha incident is one of two civilian killing cases arising out of actions by Camp Pendleton troops in Iraq. It evolved from an initial determination that the deaths were the result of urban warfare into a firestorm that mixed politics with the fog of war and the military's rules of engagement.
Four officers were eventually charged with dereliction of duty at Haditha and four enlisted men charged with murder. Charges have since been dropped for two officers and two enlisted men.
Ware's recommendations are headed to Camp Pendleton's Gen. James Mattis, who will decide what happens to Wuterich. The 27-year-old Connecticut native, whose first combat experience came at Haditha, could face a life sentence in prison if convicted of murder at trial. Negligent homicide carries a maximum three-year prison term.
Mattis can accept or reject Ware's recommendations. The general's power under the military justice system includes authority to drop the case altogether, which he did for two officers and two enlisted men.
The civilian deaths came after Wuterich led his squad in an attack on a group of homes following a roadside bombing that destroyed a Humvee, killing a lance corporal and injuring two Marines.
Five Iraqi men were the first to die when Wuterich shot them shortly after they emerged from a car that drove up immediately after the bombing. Ware recommends the charges in those deaths be dismissed, accepting Wuterich's statement that he believed those men were insurgents taking part in the attack.
The Marine Corps initially reported the Iraqis died in the bombing and subsequent small arms fire. Several weeks later, the military corrected the number of deaths to 24 after questions were raised by a Time magazine reporter who spoke to relatives of the slain Iraqis.
The first media reports resulted in an international outcry, prompting military officials to order a full-scale investigation, which brought on criminal charges.
A decision on whether Wuterich's battalion commander at Haditha, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, will face court-martial on dereliction charges is pending, as is a recommendation that murder charges against Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum be dismissed.
Murder charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt were dropped after the general found he acted within the rules of engagement. Ware also presided over the hearings for Sharratt and Tatum and recommended their charges be dismissed.
The fourth enlisted man in the case, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, had murder charges against him dropped in April in exchange for his testimony.
Dereliction charges have been dropped against Capts. Randy Stone and Lucas McConnell. A pretrial hearing for 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson is set to begin later this month.
During Wuterich's hearing, which concluded in early September, he told Ware that he regretted the civilian deaths but maintained he and his men acted in response to their training and within the rules of engagement.
"I will always mourn the unfortunate deaths of the innocent Iraqis who were killed during our response to that attack," Wuterich said. "As a sergeant and a squad leader, I am responsible for the decisions made to employ the tactics we used that day."
Former Marine Corps judge and prosecutor Gary Solis, now a military law professor at Georgetown University, said the outlook for Wuterich is a lot brighter now.
"We are seeing the system at work," Solis said, "and the question now is if he does face trial on negligent homicide, will a jury at Camp Pendleton convict him?"
The Haditha charges came six months after another Camp Pendleton group was charged in the abduction and slaying of an Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania. That case resulted in convictions for seven Marines and a Navy corpsman.
In the end, the accusations of command influence may be of benefit to those unjustly accused and even soldiers who might have been rightfully accused. There must be a lot of high-ranking officers and civilians at the Pentagon that want these cases to simply "go away". As defendants, they would have a constitutional right to question those people concerning command influence.
And why is Chessani recommended for court martial???
The 'system' DIDN'T work, Gary -- it was twisted and turned upside down to appease a politician and the seditionists among us.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.Nothing much has changed in the past 2000 years, has it?
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero
That is such solid wisdom, Fred, that it puzzles me how the higer-ups ignore it.
I don't want my troops on the battlefield forgetting that they have wives, children, families, friends, and dreams. I want them to value their own lives as sacred possessions that are NOT to be sacrificed for other than the lives of their friends in the most extreme of circumstances.
Beyond that, the highest morality is to bring yourself and your troops home alive. This idea that you can make nano-second determinations of threat and morality is a fantasy created by lawyers and philosophers far from the battlefield.
Absolutely correct, in my view, L2. They were warned, on high alert for just what happened, were receiving fire, and reacted.
Where is the “negligence?”
Absolutely.
This whole thing has been a travesty.
ping to #8
And that is an absolute travesty, in my opinion. Why?
Because the government is responsible for BOTH the prosecution AND the defense. Under the UCMJ, the soldiers are ALSO part of the military and entitled to the preservation of their rights under the constitution.
There is no way that an average American soldier -- much less his entire family -- can stand up to that powerful of an opponent. FORTY-THREE MILLION DOLLARS.
Each of these families has been bankrupted trying to defend themselves against these false charges. We saw in Iskandariyah how the government handles the defense....they assign a newbie jag officer, he waives pre-trial hearings, pleads guilty, and the government cost is ZERO....because they've gotta pay that captain his monthly salary whether he's defending someone or helping troops write their wills.
Every expense of every soldier to defend himself should be covered by the government, and this system must change.
The inequity is an indictment of this system.
LOL! Excellent creation, CW. I'm stealing it! (Imitation is the best flattery.)
They can try Wuterich and Chessani and convict them, but there is no way that an informed person can avoid RATIONALLY thinking that they were unjustly railroaded by a command team that was shaken when the congressman in charge of all of the Marine Corps’ money went on record saying that he already considered them cold-blooded killers.
There is no way, without a thorough investigation of Gen Hagee and his staff, to believe that there was NOT command influence.
At this point, knowing what we know, and with Murtha’s admissions that the Commandant was involved, the LOGICAL presumption is that there WAS command influence, and these troops have been unfairly dealt with.
Forty-three million dollars was expended to convict them, and there’s no evidence that the Marine Corps spent even a dime to defend them. Leaks about their case came regularly from the highest level. The media hype detrimental to them was continuous. The Marine Corps schools call Haditha a massacre in their official literature. They teach their students that it was a massacre. They assign a special prosecution team to see to their conviction. NCIS is permitted to play fast and loose with the facts of the case.
Is there ANYTHING resembling fairness that has gone their way?
There should be an official investigation of the SecNav’s office, the Marine Commandant’s office, Murtha’s Office, and everything from brigade on up so far as it concerns these troops’ chain of command.
I view this as great news even though I would rather that Lt. Col. Ware had recommended all charges be dropped.
I’m now praying for SSGt. Wuterich and his family that Lt. Gen. Mattis will drop all charges like he has done with his other decisions to date. I believe there’s a good chance he’ll do it, not only because it’s been established this happened in a ligitimate firefight but if Mattis recommends couts-martial I don’t believe there’s much chance of a conviction.
This recommendation certainly shoots down Murtha’s despicable accusation that these Marines killed civilians in cold blood while on a rampage. Hopefully Wuterich will win his civil suit and others will file against Murtha, Murtha deserves to pay a steep price for his blind ambition in using these Marines to further his political career.
You’ll get no argument from me in defense of the system.
One of the earliest breakdowns was in the Corps’ Public Affairs area. PAOs never corrected or challenged a single misstatement by Murtha or the media.
Ironically, it was the screw-up of a Public Affairs officer, Capt (now Major) Jeffrey Pool, that set this whole thing into motion.
Kilo Co personnel properly reported that civilians had been killed “in the vicinity of” an IED. Capt Pool shortened it in a press release to “by’ an IED. It was that discrepency of in the press release that got Tim McGirk digging for a story.
Did Public Affairs take responsibility when the Time story came out? Or when Murtha claimed the error was proof of a cover-up? Nope. The enduring impression was created that SSgt Wuterich had filed a false report, and that his superiors abetted him.
Many in the Corps who knew better did nothing. There had better be some Lessons Learned from all this or the Corps, as an institution, will not recover.
I would think the burden of proof to convict SSgt Frank Wuterich just increased by a whole lot. This was a preliminary hearing. I imagine that proving these deaths were negligent homicide vs. unfortunate deaths that were within the rules of engagement at that moment in time will not be easy. Gen. Mattis must be weighing this, along with the prosecutors, as to what they really want to do with this.
The government expenditures in this case, whether it’s 10, 20, or 43 million is unbelievable when compared to what the Marines had to scrape together to defend themselves. Most civilian prosecutors could not afford to expend this kind of effort to attempt to bring charges.
Prayers to the Wuterich family.
You are absolutely right, Chaplain. In the meantime I would ask everyone here to help if they can. I know many have already and that these Marines and their families are appreciative.
I continue to struggle with what constitutes negiligent homicide in the middle of a battle.
For murder, one would think that troops would have to go on a killing rampage, knowingly, maliciously, and intentionally killing those who they have every capability of not killing.
Battle, on the other hand, is a hyper-adrenalyn period of time when your life is at immediate, serious risk and every decision must be unhesitating or you will die.
There is some area between rampage and hair-trigger righteousness that LTC Ware must see that I simply don’t see a word for.
Where is this room for negligence at the end of a hair trigger?
LOL - I wish I had created it - I can’t remember where I heard it but feel free to use it over and over and over...
Negligent homicide? How can that be proven?
Mattis should dismiss the whole case and completely exonerate SSG Wuterich.
Maybe that’s what Ware is working toward here.
House 2 was always the biggest challenge for the defense.
But now the defense has gained a tremendous advantage at the trial (if it goes that far). They can focus on House 2 instead of defending the original 13 charges.
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