NORTH COUNTY -- As the prosecutions of seven Camp Pendleton Marines and a Navy corpsman for the alleged murder of an Iraqi in April continue, a second and potentially far larger war crime case is about to unfold.

That case centers on the slaying of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha on Nov. 19, killings that spawned international condemnation of the U.S. when the story first surfaced in a report in Time magazine in March.

A massive, detailed investigation of what happened that day conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has been sent to Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of Marine forces in Iraq and head of the Camp Pendleton-based I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Mattis will soon decide if any of the Marines in Haditha on Nov. 19 will be charged with criminal acts.

The general, sources with intimate knowledge of the case say, probably won't make that decision for at least a couple of weeks. He has asked investigators to "go deeper" into a handful of issues in the report before he will decide whether to bring criminal charges against any of the Camp Pendleton Marines alleged to have been involved in the case, the sources said.

Unlike the Hamdania case, in which the eight troops were jailed within weeks of the report of the slaying and one month before they were charged with any crimes, none of the Marines in the Haditha case have been incarcerated.

A second investigation into how Marine commanders in Iraq responded to the first reports of civilian deaths in Haditha also has been completed; it was sent to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said Tuesday from its headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

"I can confirm (we) forwarded a copy to the office of the secretary of defense," Maj. Matthew McLaughlin said in a telephone interview. "It is part and parcel of the broader investigation and we are not going to talk any further about it."

That report, prepared under the direction of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, is expected to lead to administrative actions against some Marine officers for dereliction of duty for failing to fully investigate the Haditha killings when they were first reported.

The criminal probe

The far greater jeopardy is for the Marines from the 1st squad, 3rd platoon of Kilo Company from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

At issue is the way the Marines reacted after losing one of their own when a roadside bomb explosion triggered as their convoy of four Humvees moved through the city shortly after 7 a.m.

The Marines have told investigators that they were reacting to AK-47 shots from homes a short time after the bomb explosion claimed the life of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso, Texas.

But Iraqi civilians who were present contend that the squad overreacted and stormed through four homes in search of insurgents after first killing four "military-aged men" who happened upon the scene in a taxi. After spotting the Marines, the men fled and were shot as they ran, it has been alleged.

That account of the first shootings by the Marines that day was written by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich's attorneys in a court pleading filed with his libel suit against U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who claimed the Marines were out of control and killed "in cold blood." Murtha has refused to back down from that statement and declined an offer to have the libel suit withdrawn in exchange for a public apology.

Mattis received the sixth iteration of the criminal investigation a couple of weeks ago. A Marine spokesman at Camp Pendleton confirmed Tuesday that the voluminous document is in the general's hands.

"Lt. Gen. Mattis is provided information about the investigation as it develops in order to make informed decisions," Lt. Col. Sean Gibson said, adding that the investigation is not considered closed until any possible legal or administrative actions are completed.

The latter is in fact the case with any Naval Criminal Investigative Service probe, including the work the agency did in the Hamdania homicide case arising out of the slaying of a single Iraqi in April. Until all of the troops charged in that case have had their cases resolved through such actions as a dismissal, acquittal or conviction, the investigation is considered open.

Mattis was in Washington, D.C., this week for meetings said to be unrelated to the Haditha investigation. When he will make his decision, and when the report of the actions of Marine commanders prepared under the direction of the Army's Gen. Bargewell, will be made public is uncertain, although there clearly is little work remaining on the criminal probe.

Simultaneous war crime prosecutions?

Several of the Marines at the center of the Haditha probe have retained civilian attorneys in anticipation of criminal charges being lodged. If that occurs, Camp Pendleton will have two war crime cases being prosecuted simultaneously.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service was brought into the case by Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer on March 16. Zilmer is the Marine's commanding general in Iraq and reports to Mattis.

The agency dispatched three agents from Fallujah immediately to Haditha, and on March 18, another five agents were dispatched from Washington.

To date, 65 agents and a full forensic reconstruction team have worked on the investigation, according to agency officials, who added that 25,000 man-hours have been spent on the case and have taken more than 850 "investigative actions."

"It's the biggest, or as big, an investigation that I can recall," said an agency official in Washington, who asked that his name not be used, last week.

'Rules of engagement'

Sources say the investigation suggests that the initial return of fire after the explosion that killed Lance Cpl. Terrazas was a justifiably "good shoot," as was the subsequent raid on two homes in which several of the civilians were killed.

The Marines entered two other homes and killed several more civilians, and those actions, along with the slaying of the men from the taxi, are said to constitute the bulk of the questions about whether the Marines were honoring the rules of engagement.

Those rules essentially allow a combat operation against any source of fire or suspected insurgent stronghold, but are clear in directing that lethal force not be used against children or apparent civilians unless absolutely necessary. Five women and six children were among those killed in Haditha.

The sources with intimate knowledge of the investigation say that they fully expect criminal charges will be brought against some of the Marines, suggesting the information in the report clearly indicates that some of the actions taken that day crossed the line between self-preservation and unwarranted killing.

The sources also say that Staff Sgt. Wuterich's version of events as portrayed by his attorneys in his complaint against Rep. Murtha is "far from fully complete or accurate."

The investigation itself does not recommend charges, but instead presents the findings of the investigators with dozens of attached interviews and interrogations, as well as physical evidence collected at the scene and a reconstruction performed by a forensic team.

Base ready for media crush

Camp Pendleton appeared to be contemplating how it would handle media attention when it built a $760,000 media center this summer.

The center features rows of workstations where reporters can plug in laptop computers and video screens showing proceedings from the base courtroom.

To date, that center has been used for reporters covering the unrelated Hamdania case. Three pretrial hearings have been conducted in that incident, leading to Mattis' decision, announced Monday, that he has ordered they stand trial in courts-martial.

Pretrial hearings for the other five defendants in that case are scheduled for mid-October.

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