Iraq: Compensation Payments Rising, Especially by Marines
Earl Evleth
Civilian Losses
Compensation Payments Rising, Especially by Marines
By DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, June 9 ‹ Almost half of the more than $19 million in
compensation that the American military allocated last year to compensate
for killing or injuring Iraqis and damaging property came from Marine-led
units in Anbar Province, Defense Department records show.
The $9.5 million in "condolence payments" by the Marines reflects the
persistent fighting against insurgents in violent Anbar, but it also
provides a reminder of the heavy toll that the conflict has taken on
civilians, mostly from insurgents but also from American units.
The figures, contained in a detailed Defense Department report provided
recently to Congress, do not include $38,000 paid to relatives of 15 Iraqis
killed by marines at Haditha in November, because those deaths occurred
after the end of the 2005 fiscal year on Sept. 30. That case, in which 24
Iraqi civilians were killed, is under investigation.
The total does include millions paid to residents of Falluja after the
marines cleared the city in block-by-block fighting in late 2004, as well as
hundreds of smaller payments ‹ from $50 to $50,000 ‹ broken by down by city
and date.
Throughout Iraq, payments to Iraqis deemed to be noncombatants skyrocketed,
going to $19.7 million in the 2005 fiscal year from about $5 million in
2004.
The increase, Pentagon officials say, is due in part to a policy
clarification from the Defense Department last summer that for the first
time explicitly permitted condolence payments to be paid from funds
controlled in the field by American commanders, with little oversight from
senior officers. Previously some units had paid compensation and some had
not.
The officials and outside experts said more officers began paying
restitution and more Iraqis who suffered losses began stepping forward after
the ambiguity was removed. But they added that the increase in payments,
especially in areas controlled by the marines, was probably also a result of
increased combat.
"The money spent for condolence payments reflects the high operational
tempo" for the marines in Anbar, including "significant urban combat in
Falluja," said a Marine officer, who agreed to discuss the payments only
after being assured of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
publicly.
For the first six months of 2006, condolence payments provided to Iraqis
totaled $4.9 million, according to a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Brian Maka
of the Army.
The overall figure of nearly $20 million in fiscal 2005 allotments, paid
between October 2004 and January 2006, was first reported Thursday by The
Boston Globe. The details, including information about the date, location
and military branch involved, have not previously been reported.
The detailed Defense Department report does not specify which of the more
than 600 incidents involved deaths of Iraqi civilians. Officials emphasized
that the payments, which are made from discretionary funds available from
the Commanders Emergency Response Program, were not an admission that troops
acted improperly but were in keeping with Iraqi custom and were intended to
lessen ill will toward Americans.
Residents of Baghdad received slightly more than $6 million in restitution
in 2005, the second most after Anbar Province, the document shows.
Noting the sharp increase in payments last year, Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
a Massachusetts Democrat, last week asked the Government Accountability
Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to look into the use of
condolence payments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the questions that Mr. Kennedy asked the agency to examine was, "How
many approved claims have been reviewed to determine that the cause did not
involve wrongful, as opposed to inadvertent, action on the part of U.S.
forces."
Generally, the maximum amount the military pays for a death or property
damage is $2,500, though payments of as much as $10,000 are permitted with
the approval of top commanders.
Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq since
January, has made it a priority to look for ways to ease tensions with
civilians arising from the presence of American troops in Iraq.
He told National Public Radio in an interview last week that making
condolence payments had become a standard response by the military. The
practice, he said, is "common in this part of the world ‹ it means a death
payment, a death gratuity, so to speak ‹ it is part of life over here."
But Sarah Holewinski, executive director of the Campaign for Innocent
Victims in Conflict, an advocacy group in Washington, said that despite last
year's policy change authorizing restitution for combat losses, decisions
about who is paid remain largely up to American commanders, a process that
she said brought wide discrepancies.
"The arbitrary nature of how the money is dispersed can intensify feelings
of ill will on the ground, which, ironically, the compensation payments are
designed to mitigate after a casualty," Ms. Holewinski said, adding that her
group wanted the military to issue guidelines that would ensure that
incidents are fully investigated, and that the amounts of payments were
consistent for similar incidents.
Jonathan E. Tracy, a retired Army captain who served as a lawyer in the
military, said that until September 2003, the rules of the United States
Central Command barred commanders from paying any compensation. Iraqis could
seek restitution through the Foreign Claims Act for property damaged in
accidents, like a tank crushing a car or killing a cow. But the law did not
address losses caused by combat or similar action.
Still, he said, "There are a lot of problems with the condolence payment
program as it operates now."
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting for this article.