Haditha deaths came on day of chaotic battle

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, June 13, 2007 10:42 PM PDT ∞

CAMP PENDLETON -- The day 24 civilians died at the hands of a group of Camp Pendleton Marines in 2005, Haditha was racked by insurgent attacks, making the city a chaotic battleground, a sergeant testified Wednesday.

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The witness, Sgt. Frank Wolf, said the attacks that occurred on Nov. 19, 2005, reminded him of the battle for the city of Fallujah in fall 2004, one of the major battles of the Iraq war.

Wolf's testimony came on the third day of a hearing for Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, one of three enlisted men from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment charged with murder in the civilian deaths. The pretrial hearing will help decide if Sharratt should be court-martialed.

Sharratt is accused of killing three brothers inside the bedroom of one of four homes the Marines stormed after a roadside bomb killed a Marine and injured two others.

"It was definitely a hostile environment," Wolf testified. "I would put that day up there with Fallujah -- every guy being sent out was being hit with IEDs or small-arms fire."

Wolf was a platoon leader in the battalion, and served with the 22-year-old Sharratt in Fallujah as well as in Haditha, both cities in the volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad. The two participated in numerous house-clearing operations in Fallujah, Wolf said, adding that Sharratt was adept at that task as well as his regular duties.

"As a Marine, I think he is one of the better ones out there," Wolf said.

After the hearing, Lt. Col. Paul Ware will write a recommendation stating whether he believes the evidence warrants ordering Sharratt to stand trial on three counts of unpremeditated murder. That decision ultimately will be made by Lt. Gen. James Mattis as commander of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Nineteen Iraqis, including several women and children, died inside their homes on the day of the Haditha shootings. Five other Iraqi men were shot when they emerged from a car that drove up immediately after the bombing.

Sharratt's attorneys maintain he was acting in self-defense after being ordered to clear the last of the four homes the Marines assaulted. The shootings took place when he encountered an Iraqi man inside the bedroom holding an AK-47, according to his attorneys.

Relatives of the men slain in the bedroom contend the men were herded into the room and shot in the head in rapid succession. A prosecutor, Capt. Christopher Hur, described the killings in court Wednesday as an "execution."

Those competing accounts -- one that depicts the shooting as self-defense and another as outright slaughter -- are the essence of the Sharratt case and this hearing, which is expected to conclude by the end of the week.

The issue of weapons being seized from the houses also is a point of contention in the Haditha prosecutions. A lance corporal testified Wednesday that he was given two AK-47s that he was told came from two of the homes. Prosecutors, however, maintain there is no firm record of any weapons being seized. AK-47s are ubiquitous in Iraq as each household is allowed to have one.

The man who taught the battalion's troops the rules of engagement, Sgt. Travis Fields, testified that he instructed the Marines to make decisions for themselves in combat situations.

"Don't hesitate," Fields said he taught the Marines prior to the unit being deployed to Haditha in September 2005. "It's a judgement call."

Fields was called to testify by the hearing officer, Lt. Col. Ware, who questioned him at length.

Fields said he told the troops that any time someone was pointing a weapon at a Marine or a Marine believed that they were in imminent danger, the rules of engagement allowed them to shoot, Fields said.

But he said situations such as the one encountered by Sharratt were never specifically addressed.

"They were not trained to anticipate meeting someone inside a home with a weapon," Field said.

Also testifying Wednesday was Lance Cpl. James Prentice, a friend of Sharratt's who served with him in Haditha and spoke briefly with him a few hours after the shootings.

In a statement to investigators in early 2006, Prentice allegedly said Sharratt had told him that he and Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the man who led the assault on the homes and is charged with 13 counts of murder, were going to use "a story" that the men inside the room were killed after one pointed a rifle at Sharratt.

But under questioning from defense attorney Jim Culp, Prentice said he never told the investigators that Sharratt had "made up" that story, suggesting those words were inserted into his statement by agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Sharratt's attorneys still haven't decided if he will testify or make a statement at the hearing's conclusion.

Sharratt's father, Darryl Sharratt, said during a break Wednesday that the prosecution of his son is misguided.

"We train these Marines, we send them over to Iraq to kill and then we decide that they did something wrong," he said. "Then we make their fellow Marines testify against them and force Marine lawyers to prosecute them. It's disgusting."

Hearings for Wuterich and the other accused shooter in Haditha, Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, are set to take place later this summer.

Hearings for two of four officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to order an investigation into the civilian deaths have taken place with no decision yet on whether the officers will be ordered to trial. Hearings for the other two officers are also expected to take place later this summer.

-- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

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