From Patterico.com Based on news reports, I suspected this was wrong. Murtha’s “in cold blood” statement was made on May 17, and I believed that Gen. Hagee had briefed Murtha well after that. Later news reports —
in particular this one from Reuters — appeared to confirm my suspicions. But when
I wrote the L.A. Times Readers’ Representative, she insisted that
The Times’s report had been accurate, despite my having provided her with evidence to the contrary, including the Reuters story. Some suggested that Reuters might have gotten the story wrong, or overlooked an angle. So I contacted Gen. Hagee’s office directly. I heard back yesterday from the Public Affairs Officer for the Commandant. She directly contradicted the L.A. Times’s version of the facts — but declined to criticize the article specifically. Here is her statement:
While it would not be appropriate to comment on any particular press article, I can confirm that the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael Hagee, provided a progress update on the Haditha investigations to Congressional leaders, to include Rep. Murtha, on May 24, 2006. In a follow-up phone call, she confirmed that May 24 was the first progress update Gen. Hagee gave Murtha and others. I specifically asked her whether May 24 was the first time Gen. Hagee spoke to Congressman Murtha about Haditha, and she said “yes.” So Hagee first briefed Murtha on Haditha on May 24 — a solid week after May 17, when Murtha first accused Marines of killing civilians “in cold blood.” Yet the L.A. Times specifically said that Hagee had briefed Murtha first, and Murtha “later” made his “in cold blood” accusation. If Hagee’s office is right, then the L.A. Times May 26 article was wrong. I can only speculate about where Murtha got his information, but according to Gen. Hagee’s Public Affairs Officer, it wasn’t from General Hagee himself (as Murtha had claimed to the Philadelphia Inquirer).
Not only did Murtha make his statements before the investigation was complete, he didn’t receive his preliminary information from the top brass before accusing Marines of cold-blooded murder. And the L.A. Times covered for him, and continues to do so — even after I have told them that Hagee’s office says otherwise.