Like I said, I haven't seen the video and it may very well have been justified. But I think if you shoot a wounded guy laying on the ground on camera, it's likely you're going to end up being punished as a result.
Mon Nov 15 18:01:47 2004
Closed caption capture, joined just a few seconds in progress.
From PMSNBC CHrissy the Hissy speaking...then they show the video just to the point the Marine fires his weapon...
"...operations in fallujah. Nbc news has decided not to air the most gruesome of the images, but the incident you'll see in this report is raising the question. Is there ever a justification for shooting an unarmed enemy? Nbc's kevin sites has this exclusive firsthand account of what happened inside that mosque.
>> These U.S. Marines have had to fight for nearly every inch of ground taken in fallujah. They've inflicted heavy casualties on insurgents here. But have also suffered many of their own. Some with a new harrowing tactic, booby trapping them. They fired on them with rifles and R.P.G.'S from this mosque. Marines hit back, killing 10 insurgents, and wounding five inside. These weapons were collected from the dead. This marine's flee splooe one more example that mosques are being used by insurgents as fighting positions. They treat the wounded but leave them behind to be picked up later as marines continue their offensive sound. The next day the marines got reports that some of the areas they had cleared the day before had been reoccupied by insurgents. Including the mosque. What happens that saturday is an entirely -- isn't clear. A marine unit whic was not involved in the prior day's attacks on the mosque now fights its way up the street toward the mosque. For taking fire, perhaps from the mosque. One squad moves around the back. A second approaches from the back. There are but not got. When the second squad, followed by msnbc reaches the entrance, the first has already been inside.
>> We had two in there.
>> Inside the mosque, the same five men that were wounded the day before are still there. But now one of them is dead while three others lay dying. Only one is untouched. Then a marine notices, one of the severely wounded men is still breathing. He did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way. In fact, there were no weapons visible in the room except those carried by the marines. The marine then raises his rifle and fires into the man's head. The pictures are too graphic for to us broadcast. At the same time, just a block away, one marine was killed and five wounded by the booby-trapped body of a dead insurgent. So as dangerous as iraq is, is the shooting is self-defense. Lieutenant colonel bob miller is heading up a full scale investigation into the case.
>> The policy of the engagement of the marines to use force when presented with a hostile act.
>> The marine who pulled the trigger has been removed from the field pending possible charges tsmg day before he was shot in the face during combat but had already returned to duty.
>> The wounded in this case insurgents who don't pose a threat would not be considered hostile.
>> But this war zone like most is rife with uncertainty and confusion. Young men here are often forced to shoot faster than they can think. And that can create a deadly place indeed. Kevin sites, nbc news, fallujah.
>> Let's get reaction from the pentagon and nbc news correspondent jim miklaszewski. What is the military's reaction to this?
>> T pentagon's reaction is that this is in the hands of the military. The military justice system. There's an investigation underway. And the pentagon officials with oversight think that the military will indeed conduct a thorough investigation. I can tell you the military's reaction to this is one of somewhat resigned sadness. That they know in the heat of combat, the situations like this often occur but they really hate to hear about it.
>> The nbc piece was carefully reported, wasn't it?
>> There was a lot of context from kevin. It wasn't just, here's the picture. It talks for itself. He tried to explain the environment. The soldier had been shot himself in the face. There were cases of booby-trapped bodies. All kinds of reasons to believe that a body, a wounded person wasn't necessarily a wounded person.
>> And chris, if you hear the voice of the soldier who pulls the trigger, he's clearly jazzed. He is really wound pretty tightly. And you can only imagine what the intensity of that combat does to many of these troops after several days. On the other hand, if indeed this was a wounded, unarmed combatant, the military code of justice says there is no justification for doing that. Earlier in the battle of najaf, there was an incident where a combatant, an enemy combatant was seriously wounded to the point that he was clearly dying. A U.S. Soldier walked up and put a bullet into his head. He says, it was a mercy killing. However, the army looked at it differently. They pulled him out of service and he's been charged with homicide. And that trial is yet to the begin.
>> We'll be listening to that tape. We didn't hear it quite clearly. I didn't hear it. The comments made by the trooper, did they sound malicious? Is there anyway to read it?
>> It doesn't sound malicious at all. Not like he was sneering. Nothing like that at all. He just sounded wound tightly. He said with some and me I have thees in it, he is faking he is dead. He's faking he's dead. And then boom! You hear the shot. So clearly, it's possible that he had in his mind the fact that one of his comrades was killed on the streets of fallujah only a few days before by a body of an insurgent that was booby-trapped. However, again, the uniform code of military justice looks at this much differently and even in the heat of battle, while they recognize that sometimes these things can sort of spin out of crom, ultimately, the letter of the law says there is no justification for shooting an unarmed wounded combatant. And kevin sites was pretty clear to say that the, all the weapons that were in that mosque had been removed the day before when another squad of marines had gone in there and there was no evidence of any weapons inside."
Remember that group that was captured with the American? They were all wounded prisons and what did they do? Didn't a couple of our guys get killed in the process?
Maybe the rule should be "Shoot the reporter first."
You need to see the video. It wasn't like you think. The "wounded" Iraqi insurgent was leaning up against a wall shoulder to shoulder with many others in what appears to be a small chamber of some kind. Our troops were stepping over legs going through the room. It did not appear to be a calm scene of post-battle assessment, the soldier's voice was panicky.
This is war and our troops have been through hell in Faluja. I am not going to 2nd guess ANY of them in this situation.