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Winter apparently wasn’t satisfied with the speed Huck’s decision to bow to media pressure. He tongue-lashed Huck for failing “to ensure that the circumstances surrounding the Haditha engagement were investigated thoroughly….Your advice to your immediate commander, Lieutenant General Chiarelli, regarding no necessity for further investigation conveyed a cavalier attitude towards the gravity of these allegations...”

I think one reason the Haditha case became so big had to do with Chiarelli and his reaction. He sent Watt in to do a preliminary investigation. Watt's main conclusion were:
1. The Public Affair Officer's (Jeffrey Pool) press report was wrong - most of the Iraqis died of gunshot wounds, not an IED.
2. No investigation was completed at Huck's level and lower.

Chiarelli was of the mindset that the counterinsurgency effort needed to go the way of winning hearts and minds vs. traditional Marine combat tactics. The incident in Haditha did not fit this new mold. Instead of calmly and quietly investigating the incident, sending in NCIS, immediately briefing key persons in Congress that what had happened was "bad", not responding to Murtha's wild allegations, shows more of a hair-on-fire approach.

The timing of the public release of the Haditha incident was at odds with our new approach in Iraq. Unfortunately, Haditha was not anywhere close to being able to be calmed down at that time with the winning hearts and minds approach. The Haditha Marines have paid a price for being the poster child of the opposite of the new counterinsurgency approach.

What has amazed me throughout, is that the PAO, Pool, has never been brought into these cases. This was 50% of the reason the Marine leadership got so bent out of shape about the public perception. And yet, Pool's effect on Haditha has been ignored, pushed aside. Who does this guy know in high places?

If you go back to the Bargewell Report, he lays it out in detail that the lack of clarity came from Pool and his crew at Division. Chessani’s team down through Kallop did send in reports and corrections throughout the day and evening; Pool issued his report the next day after all of those had been viewed and supposedly collated.

I thought Pool had clarified his statement within a day or so, in that what he meant was that "as a result of an IED attack and the firefight at followed, 8 insurgents and 15 civilians who were caught in the crossfire were killed".

Maybe no one brings Pool up because it would make them look a little silly for not ever questioning Pool in the 1st place.