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Haditha hearing shows leadership mind-set
By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer | ∞
CAMP PENDLETON -- If the slaying of two dozen civilians 18 months ago in Haditha was a war crime, as prosecutors assert, not a single Marine commander seems to have considered that possibility until questions were raised by a journalist two months after the event.
Testimony heard over the last five days at Camp Pendleton made it clear that officers from the rank of captain to general accepted the initial reports of what occurred -- that the deaths were nothing more than what the military calls "collateral damage."
Word throughout the chain of command was that even though the dead included two women and five children slain inside their homes, the "NKIAs" as the Marines call noncombatants killed in action, were victims of crossfire and nothing more.
That theme was heard from numerous officers who testified last week during a hearing for Capt. Randy Stone, the legal adviser for the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment and one of four officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the deaths. Three enlisted men face murder charges.
The hearing to determine if Stone faces court-martial continued in a daylong session Saturday with a top Marine legal officer saying he accepted the initial account despite the high number of civilian deaths and went on about the business of the war.
"In this case, it appeared the noncombatants were killed because of the IED and a subsequent ambush, and I saw no reason to investigate that, "said Lt. Col. Kent Keith, who was the staff judge advocate for the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq when the killings occurred. "It's not a violation if there is incidental loss of life. There isn't an automatic law-of-war violation if you have collateral damage,"
Insurgents among the dead
What is known throughout the world as "the Haditha incident" emerged as a flash point in the U.S. involvement in Iraq because of contentions that a squad of Camp Pendleton Marines went on a rampage after a roadside bombing the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, killed a lance corporal and injured two other Marines.
The Marine Corps released a statement soon afterward saying that 15 civilians died in the bombing and that eight insurgents died in a resulting firefight.
But months later the Marine Corps would say 24 townspeople died, including five men who were shot at gunpoint while standing with their hands raised in surrender, according to Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, one of the men who participated in the shooting, testified Wednesday.
The 19 people killed in the homes died when Kilo Company troops were ordered by platoon commander Lt. William Kallop to conduct a "clearing operation." The order was based on a report that insurgents were using the structures as cover for a small-arms attack.
Despite not clearly knowing who may have been behind the doors, the Marines went from house to house, tossing a grenade into each room they encountered and following up with automatic weapons fire.
According to intelligence reports that the Marine Corps has never released, several of the people inside were insurgents, as were some of the men from the car, Stone's attorney Charles Gittins said outside of court Saturday.
A Marine Corps spokesman, Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, later said he could not comment on any classified material that may give a full accounting of the number of dead determined to be insurgents.
When the service filed charges Dec. 21, its written statement referred to the dead only as "24 Iraqi civilians."
The Marines paid more than $40,000 in restitution to survivors of 15 victims killed in two of the houses after determining those people had no hostile intent.
Relatives of four men killed in a third house got no payment because those men were believed to be insurgents, Marine Maj. Dana Hyatt testified Saturday.
Hyatt also said no payments were made to relatives of the five men killed as they were held at gunpoint when they emerged from a car minutes after the bombing. No money went to their survivors because of a never-verified report that the car contained weapons indicating those men were insurgents.
Another general to testify?
One of the more dramatic moments of the hearing came Thursday when former 2nd Marine Division Maj. Gen. Richard Huck testified under oath via a video link with the Pentagon, where he is now assigned.
Huck testified for two hours, explaining why he relied on the first reports coming up from Haditha as to why he didn't believe the incident needed investigation.
Stone's attorney Charles Gittins has asserted Huck should have been charged with dereliction of duty but wasn't because, he said, the Marine Corps didn't "have the stomach" to accuse a general.
Huck's testimony was beamed into a conference room at the I Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters that includes clocks on the wall showing the current time in Iraq and around the world.
The general said it wasn't until questions were raised in January 2006 by a Time magazine reporter that he had any inkling the killings may have violated the rules of engagement. Huck said he was angered when he learned his staff knew of the allegations two weeks before it was brought to his attention by one of his bosses, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli.
"What am I, the last guy in this outfit to find out about this?" Huck said he asked his staff.
Huck told Chiarelli he still believed from everything he was being told that the civilians were killed in the course of a legitimate combat action. That changed the next day, when on Feb. 13, 2006, Chiarelli told him there would be a formal investigation.
Huck might not be the only general heard from during the prosecutions.
Attorneys for the former battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, want Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq at the time, to testify during the hearing for their client, scheduled to begin at Camp Pendleton on May 30.
"If General Casey knew what General Huck knew, we need to hear about that," Chessani attorney Brian Rooney said Saturday.
The attorneys have a meeting set for Tuesday with prosecutors to discuss whether Casey will be called.
Chessani didn't order a probe, Rooney said, because "you don't go after Marines after a combat action assuming they are criminals."
Paying for deaths, damages
A Marine officer, who inspected the two homes 10 days after the killings, testified Saturday that he saw body parts, bloody mattresses, shell casings and an unexploded grenade.
"It was the most blood I had ever seen," said Maj. Dana Hyatt, who testified under a grant of immunity.
Hyatt was the 3rd Battalion's officer in charge of making what would end up at $38,000 in payments to families of 15 survivors.
On the day he inspected the homes, Hyatt said, he asked one of the men who took part in the assault, Cpl. Hector Salinas, what had happened.
"He mentioned that he thought they heard rounds being chambered in the first house and that's why they threw a grenade in there," Dana said. "In the second house, they thought there were insurgents in there."
Hyatt also approved paying $3,000 to the owners of the homes for structural damage.
'He was the tripwire'
Former Marine Corps attorney Gary Solis, now a professor of military law at Georgetown University, said that from his understanding of the testimony, what's been heard can be viewed in a couple of ways.
"When women and children are involved, that should have been a point of all-stop," Solis said Saturday during a telephone interview. "Whenever you have that many noncombatant deaths, it should have prompted questions."
Stone, as the battalion's legal adviser, could be viewed as a kind of first-responder with the obligation to advise his commanders that an investigation should take place.
"The man on the scene was Captain Stone -- he was the tripwire to alert people that an investigation may be necessary," Solis said.
But Stone's defense that senior officers, including Huck and Chessani, didn't seem to think any investigation was necessary may be the tipping point for whether the charges against him stand.
The testimony of Sgt. Dela Cruz, who along with Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich shot the five men who emerged from a car that drove up immediately after the bombing, could be very harmful for Wuterich, Solis said.
"His testimony is obviously very damaging, but what will be critical is the assessment of members of his testimony," Solis said, referring to a military jury that would hear the case against Wuterich if it reaches trial. "But on its face, the testimony is damning and could be fatal to Sergeant Wuterich."
Murder charges against Dela Cruz were dropped last month in exchange for his testimony.
Solis also said that hearing numerous senior officers say they didn't question the deaths is disturbing.
"That this number of noncombatants can be killed and not raise an eyebrow speaks volumes about our war."
What's next
The hearing drew widespread media interest, including a correspondent from Germany's Der Spiegel weekly magazine and reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters and The Associated Press.
When the testimony ends, Maj. Thomas McCann will write a report to Camp Pendleton's Lt. Gen. James Mattis stating whether he believes Stone should be sent on to court-martial.
If Mattis decides the testimony shows Stone failed to carry out his duties, the 34-year-old Maryland native will be tried at Camp Pendleton and could face two years behind bars and a dismissal from the service if convicted and given the maximum sentence.
Hearings for the other officers, Chessani and 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson and Capt. Lucas McConell, take place later this summer. Hearings for the men charged with murder -- Wuterich and Lance Cpls. Justin Sharratt and Stephen Tatum will play out in the coming weeks.
-- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.
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Gig wrote on May 13, 2007 7:43 AM:Under King George, any ethical General was quietly put out to pasture. All those remaining were 'yes men.'
Gary Owens wrote on May 13, 2007 8:00 AM:A recent ArmyTimes survey had over 70% saying torture of prisoners was Ok. Maybe the military feels that as long as the families get paid a couple of thousand dollars for each dead relative then there is no problem. I guess this is the "new" military we have been hearing about.
Another Excuse wrote on May 13, 2007 8:47 AM:Is this another excuse or cover-up? Do they really value life of another human so poorly? Are these people without a conscience? Innocent people killed and their lives considered nothing just because they are Iraqi. But this administration will do nothing but pardon these higher ups in the military.
Tom wrote on May 13, 2007 9:02 AM:The world is watching the Pendleton cases, so we'd better do it right. If war crimes go unpunished, we will all pay the price in many ways for many years to come. This all just goes to show how far our nation has fallen from what we used to be. Time to re-evaluate and fall back from our policy of solving all problems with violence and aggression. "If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem seems to be a nail."
June wrote on May 13, 2007 11:42 AM:Our soldiers should have been better instructed as to what they might meet on the ground in Iraq. People carrying weapons are not necessarily insurgents; many Iraqis have guns; Iraq is a gun culture - they fire their weapons at weddings and other celebrations and now many more have guns for protection given the breakdown of law & order. The troops should have been told that many Iraqis would NOT welcome a military invasion as much as they hated Saddam. Our police forces are given some instruction as to what situations and attitudes they might meet in certain neighborhoods in order to avoid harming innocent people, so should our soldiers - but in this case we all know too late that we were bamboozled into invading Iraq under false pretenses - so the Administration misled our troops as much as they did the rest of us.
truthseeker wrote on May 13, 2007 12:21 PM:I'm 100% for our troops and whatever they have to do to defeat the enemy. Maybe if everyone felt this way these "innocent" towns people wouldn't aid and hide the terrorists. Which one of you if you had cancer would tell the doctor to just kill the bad cells? The enemy does not choose to separate themselves from the "civilians" and the "civilians" do not choose to separate themselves from the enemy. It's too bad only one side has standards to uphold.
The Marines wrote on May 13, 2007 3:22 PM:Don't have time to have a conscience. They just do what they do. Not their fault really. They should never have been sent to Iraq. It's time to impeach the head guy.
Its called WAR! wrote on May 13, 2007 4:00 PM:Wahts the world going to do if we don't, as Tom says below, "do it right"? Are insurgents and terrorists going to behead our soldiers more savagely? All you people who really believe that are living in something other than reality. Do not make the mistake of thinking that if we demand our troops fight with one hand tied behind their back the enemy will follow suit. Let them fight the war, they're the ones getting shot at and blown up!
AW4cryinoutloud wrote on May 13, 2007 4:44 PM:For months I watched the injustice of the Duke LaCrosse case. I watched three young men persecuted by not only Nifong, but the mainstream media and even many Americans who were of the Rush to Judgment mentality. Now all I've seen over the past 10 months is more of the same. The only differences are that the accused are those who fight for this country; an honorable breed of men who have not the financial means to defend against a highly questionable system of justice, investigative organization, media, and a powerful political machine. The Pentagon, the Marine Corps leaders, and the media; all, have had full knowledge of the town of Haditha and the insurgency's control. In May, 2005, just six months before this Haditha incident, close to 1,000 Marines and sailors, along with Iraqi security forces, mounted a dragnet for insurgents in Anbar Province. In the first part of the dragnet 19 Marines and 135 insurgents were killed. On May 25 there's an accounting of fighting in Haditha. An attack, from three houses, on a Marine's Lima Co. One Marine killed, one injured, six insurgents killed, four wounded, four detained. Among the insurgents was an Imam who had fired on the patrol. According to Marines (public record) "THE INSURGENTS APPARENTLY COMMANDEERED THE HOUSES, CAUSING CIVILIANS TO BE TRAPPED." The fighting continued throughout the day. "Marines found that insurgents were using palm groves along the river to bury and hide weapons". Anything in this Haditha case today and also the Hamdania case(burying weapons in palm groves) sound familiar? Haditha is considered strategic because of an oil refinery and a dam for 13% of Iraq's power. Our own military says that Insurgents use Haditha for a Refuge. In April the police chief was assassinated and 19 fishermen were found shot execution style. That also sounds familiar. Our own media reports execution style killings when mentioning our accused Marines. OUR Marines do not "execute" innocents. The enemy does this. On May 7, insurgents attacked Marine's going into a hospital. We lost lives there. NO ONE; not one person questioned the right of those Marines, in all instances, as to their right to defend themselves. NO ONE; not one person questioned the November Haditha incident until TIME stepped up to the plate. WHO the hell are they in the first place to even suggest something they admitted they could not verify? This is the most ridiculous and pathetic excuse for a system of justice that I've ever witnessed. It has far surpassed Duke LaCrosse. Even one of those young men said he worried for anyone who had not the financial means, as did his family, to defend themselves. Well; all he has to do is watch the proceedings in the Hamdania and Haditha cases and he can see his worry come to fruition.
Boyd: wrote on May 13, 2007 6:15 PM: These people write a lot but it does not really work the way it is laid out here. If the evidence proves that Stone purposely did not do his duty then he should be court-Martialed and the truth brought out. However, if Stone is guilty of making a mistake, or even more than one, that is a different thing. We put our people on the battle field and the press and the public expect perfection from them. If you want perfection you might look to God. Do not look to a young man on the battle field. You can train them until they get things perfect every time, but, it is impossible to simulate real battle situations. Even a hardened battle veteran will screw up now and then. That is the reason mothers worry so much - they know their sons are not perfect- none are. In addition, journalist hang around waiting for a juicy screw up so they can get a pat of the head from their bosses. Screw ups have won more prizes for them than good productive acts.
John1 wrote on May 13, 2007 7:19 PM:I love all the pseudo do-gooders who post their "outrage" at civilian deaths and what "should" happen. Gary Solis- oft-quoted by NCTimes, was similarly deficient during the Vietnam War, if he considers Stone deficient. Marines going to Iraq have 45 minutes of training in "crime scene police work"- these men are COMBAT INFANTRYMEN. Split second decisions on whether to pull the trigger. The people grading their decisions have not themselves been in such a situation, nor have they been trained as infantry and cannot fathom the decision making necessary in what is generally a life or death situation. Yet WE THE PEOPLE allow our troops to be hamstrung. Impeach Bush? Fine- then recall those in Congress who do not help their constituents and allow via their approval of UCMJ and combat training criteria to have unqualified personnel both providing direction to and evaluating the peformance of combat troops.
To the 1st 5 posts wrote on May 14, 2007 4:30 PM:Yep, John1 has it right....And anyone with a gun, is my enemy if he is pointing and shooting at me. We at home cannot openly carry weapons, but you say it's okay that they do? And, again who said these are 'war crimes'? Would you also call a hang nail a war crime if it occurred on the nail of an Iraqi? Come on, get real. War is hell. War can kill. If you don't want to get killed, then get the h--l out of the way. And, again you aren't there, are you?
JDR wrote on May 14, 2007 8:29 PM:Those of you condemning these men need to realize that your very right to do so is because of these men. "War crimes" as you call them have been going on since before this country existed. You are the same folks that probably disagree with the bombing of Japan in WWII. When you are there it's kill or be killed and one comment by Another Excuse really upset me--talking about value human life. No one values human life more than a soldier (or this case a marine), they value each other's lives and their own lives and lives of whining liberals back home who seem to have forgotten how they felt on 9/11. All this bureaucracy and criminal charges is going to cause more American deaths because we'll second guess ourselves.
Commenter wrote on May 15, 2007 1:04 AM:I have read over and over that the military makes enemies everytime they kill civilians or bust down the doors fo their home and destroy their belongings. I think this is why the war has been lost because the military is making more enemies everyday with the occupation. Would any of us like occupying troops in our country? I doubt it. It is a lost cause and bad strategy from the beginning. Brutality is not working and it should not be what America stands for. The Iraqis did not attack the US. Bush attacked them.
truthseeker wrote on May 15, 2007 8:40 PM:To commentater If we were harboring or giving aid and comfort to terrorist in our country and we could do nothing about it, I might expect the offended country to attempt an occupation. The enemy is great at propaganda, the press is great at delivering it and you and many in congress are great at sucking it in.
To JDR wrote on May 17, 2007 7:53 AM:9/11 had and has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on in Iraq. We might as well have invaded Dafur. Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11; most of the support, finances and personnel came from our allies: Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Pakistan. Now Bush has brought the terrorists into Iraq and we are providing them with ample training oppurtunities and targets...and the middle east will be in chaos, when we leave....but that is Bush's legacy...the destabilization of the world.
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