Rageboy and The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب (aka TIME magazine) will be up to their phony stunt indignation for days to come.
Thanks McGirk, thanks Murtha, thanks lamestream media and Pentagon perfumed princes.
Posted on 01/23/2012 7:08:17 PM PST by RedRover
Camp Pendleton, Calif. – The General Court Martial of US Marine Corps SSgt Frank D. Wuterich ended Monday morning after a plea deal was reached over the weekend. In return for a guilty plea to one count of Negligent Dereliction of Duty, the six-year ordeal of the 31-year old father of three is finally over.
Negligent dereliction is a lesser included offense detailed in Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Dereliction of Duty. Before the agreement, SSgt Wuterich was charged with “Willful Dereliction of Duty,” a much more severe offense. In return for his plea, 13 charges, including nine counts of Voluntary Manslaughter, two counts of Aggravated Assault, and two other charges of willful dereliction were dropped.
SSgt Wuterich faced more than 160 years in prison if he had been found guilty and sentenced to the maximum sentence allowed by law on each count. That option was never really on the table although the specter of life in prison wore heavily on everyone associated with the case since SSgt Wuterich and seven other Marines were charged with massacring 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq on Nov. 19, 2005.
The maximum sentence military judge LtCol David Jones can now impose on SSgt Wuterich is three months confinement and loss of two -thirds of his pay while he is confined. The staff sergeant told the judge he earns $3,486 a month. At risk if he is incarcerated are his three little girls, who are otherwise without a resident parent.
SSgt Wuterich admitted he failed to maintain "adequate tactical control" of three Marines he was leading and made a "negligent verbal order." While answering the military judge’s questions before the deal was done, SSgt Wuterich said comments he made to troops he was leading were negligent and may have led to the "tragic" deaths of the women and children.
"I took a team of Marines to clear houses to the south of the site [where House 1 and House 2 are situated] and did use the words 'shoot first, ask questions later,' or something to that affect prior to clearing or entering there," he said.
The six-year long tragedy was triggered by a specious story in Time magazine in which reporter Tim McGirk accused a squad of Marines from Kilo, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines of running rampant through two houses full of civilians killing everyone they saw in revenge for the IED death of one of their own. McGirk graduated from University of California Berkeley and is now teaching there with money the university obtained from donors to create a fellowship teaching investigative journalism. McGirk was never at Haditha and relied on two known insurgent sympathizers masquerading as human rights workers for his “facts.”
Twenty-four Iraqis were killed, the Marine Corps has said, including six women and four children as Marines tried to find the gunmen who had been firing on them from houses near the bomb blast. Five Iraqi men died on a road the Marines called Route Chestnut, the only hard-surfaced thoroughfare into the southern part of the city. SSgt Wuterich testified he took a knee and shot them when they tried to flee after they inexplicably showed up seconds before the bomb exploded. Several witnesses testified they were the only Iraqis driving on the road when the blast occurred.
McGirk’s helpful human rights advocates, one of whom had just been released from Abu Ghraib prison , and the other whom Marine signal-intercept specialists had been monitoring for months, were heard before the attack planning how to record the event for propaganda purposes. Six of the victims died in the first house the four Marines stormed and eight more died in the second they cleared with grenades and rifle fire.
The event was precipitated by the gruesome death of twenty-year old LCpl Miguel “T.J.” Terrazas, who died when a remotely detonated roadside bomb tore both him and the Humvee he was riding in to pieces. The bomb was buried in the hard-surfaced road and then concealed with fresh cement in plain view of the victims who lived there. Two other Marines were wounded in the attack. The decimated squad was then fired upon by unseen gunman they believed were hiding in and around two houses filled with civilians.
After the initial hearing concluded about 9:00 am PT, SSgt Wuterich shook hands with his attorneys and then turned to hug his parents David and Rosemarie Wuterich, who have been in the court room every day since testimony began two weeks ago.
Lead defense attorney Neal Puckett told LtCol Jones the negotiations that caused a flurry of speculation Wednesday and Thursday never ended but in fact had continued through the weekend. He offered the observation after LtCol Jones told the court that the first round of bargaining “fell through” before court resumed Friday morning.
"Nothing ever fell through,” Puckett corrected the unusually patient judge before the settlement was announced. “I’d like to get that on the record.”
Defend Our Marines has e-mailed McGirk for a comment. As of this writing he has not replied.
Sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday morning at 8:30 am PT.
A few other careers likewise came to an end thanks to the cowardice of the scumbag Pentagon and the scumbag political whores, all of whom ran like scared bunny rabbits from a slimy propaganda piece slopped together by a worm named Tim McGirk and published in a dying, liberal magazine. Wow.
In this way, those scum handed the enemy a victory on a silver platter.
JUST BREAKING NOW:
MARINE GETS NO JAIL TIME
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57365179/marine-gets-no-jail-time-for-haditha-killings/
Sentence: 90 days incarceration, reduction to E-1, no lost pay.
But the convening authority says no confinement so there will be no jail time.
Waiting for press conference. Not sure about terms of discharge. More later.
Thank God no jail time, Frank Wuterich can get on with his life.
He took one for he Marine Corps. and the Marines know it.
The Iraqis are going ape-spit.
About 15 minutes ago Fox said Wuterich will not have to do any time.
I'll bet they are along with most of the enemedia. It's good to see the word getting out so soon.
Sure they are. Lights, camera, action. Let’s all get on CNN.
This is on the heads of those who in the media, the government, and the military who should have said, this was no massacre.
Like the little girl who knew the bomb was set to go off, there are citizens of this stretch of Haditha who know they were firing on these Marines that morning.
They know that Wuterich's complete exhoneration would have been justice, and that America's judicial system failed one of it's warriors.
But, they know, and they will answer some day.
It's my understanding that discharge is an entirely seperate issue. It is an administrative function and can not be part of the plea agreement.
Rageboy and The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب (aka TIME magazine) will be up to their phony stunt indignation for days to come.
Thanks McGirk, thanks Murtha, thanks lamestream media and Pentagon perfumed princes.
???
I don't think I understand this.
House arrest???
Jones said the plea bargain approved by Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser called for no jail time.
Jones said that he planned to recommend 90 days in the brig, the maximum as requested by the prosecution, but that Waldhauser's approval of the details of the plea bargain trumps that recommendation.
MILITARY: Wuterich reduced in rank, but jail term set aside
Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich was reduced in rank to private Tuesday after pleading guilty to one count of negligent dereliction of duty, ending the largest war-crimes prosecution to emerge from the Iraq war.
At the sentencing Tuesday, military judge Lt. Col. David Jones ordered Wuterich to serve 90 days in jail, but that was set aside under the terms of a plea agreement reached Monday. The details of the agreement were revealed after the judge rendered his sentence.
(Click link for rest of Walker's story)
_____________________________________________
The details of the agreement were revealed after the judge rendered his sentence.
Jones intended for Wuterich to do the max time in jail.
Jones is a worthless piece of shit.
I don’t have the full story from Nat yet but my understanding is that SSgt Wuterich was given a sentence as a formality and incarceration was commuted by decision of the convening authority.
Like being sentenced in court and then having it instantly commuted.
This must have been part of the plea agreement. Details as soon as I have them!
Thanks for the reply. We almost cross-posted. I saw in Walker’s story the same thing you pointed out - - that sick, cowardly scumbag Jones wanted to bring the hammer down on Frank. That pre-approved plea agreement was a smart idea by the defense team, who could obviously see what a piece of shit Jones is.
If the "convening authority" was Jones, then he had nothing to do with it. That sick, cowardly scumbag apparently wanted Wuterich in jail for the max time allowable (90 days). See jazusamo's post @ #95.
Jones has me PO’d for the reduction to E-1.
The fact is that this was a buck sergeant’s first time in combat. The fact also is that Wuterich clearly said his intention in “shoot first, questions later” was to push his men to stay safe by staying on the attack and NOT to injure civilians.
A buck sergeant’s first time in combat, and he was saying something that is damn close to the ROEs which were “reasonable PID + protect personal safety”.
The combination of those two is far different that “absolute PID”.
It clearly puts the weight of the ROEs on the side of personal security and not on the side of risking your life to get a PID.
Any imbecile can see that, can read what was going on in this young buck sergeant’s mind, and can absolutely see that there was ZERO crime committed that day by SSgt Wuterich.
Patton would have given him a damn medal, and Lincoln would have given him a commission.
The US military, circa 2012, besmirches their honor and would prefer assigning all troops pink PJs and sensitivity classes to get in touch with their inner femininity.
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