Military Cites 'Negligence' in Aftermath of Iraq Killings
Brett
Military Cites 'Negligence' in Aftermath of Iraq Killings
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
A military investigation has found that senior Marine Corps commanders
in Iraq showed a routine disregard for the lives of Iraqi civilians
that contributed to a "willful" failure to investigate the killing of
24 unarmed Iraqis by marines in 2005, lawyers involved in the case
said.
The report, completed last summer but never made public, also found
that a Marine Corps general and colonel in Iraq learned of the
killings within hours that day, Nov. 19, 2005, in the town of Haditha,
but failed to begin a thorough inquiry into how they occurred.
The 130-page report, by Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell of the Army, did
not conclude that the senior officers covered up evidence or committed
a crime. But it said the Marine Corps command in Iraq was far too
willing to tolerate civilian casualties and dismiss Iraqi claims of
abuse by marines as insurgent propaganda, according to lawyers who
have read it.
"All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in
significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result
of insurgent tactics," General Bargewell wrote in his report,
according to two people who have read it. "Statements made by the
chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a
whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S.
lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the
Marines need to get the job done no matter what it takes."
The killings in Haditha, in Anbar Province, began with a roadside
bombing that killed one American marine and wounded two. Several
marines then began methodically killing civilians in the area,
eventually going door to door in the village and killing women and
children, some in their beds, according to a Naval criminal
investigation.
General Bargewell's report, completed at the request of Lt. Gen. Peter
W. Chiarelli, the day-to-day commander of American forces in Iraq at
the time, did not focus on the killings themselves, but rather on
commanders' handling of the aftermath.
The Washington Post published details of the report's findings on
Saturday. Spokesmen for the Marine Corps declined to comment, citing
hearings for the three enlisted marines charged with murder in the
case and for four officers charged with dereliction of duty for
failing to ensure a proper investigation.
General Bargewell's report was said to have found what it called
"inattention and negligence, in certain cases willful negligence,"
among Marine officers who reported the civilian deaths immediately up
their chain of command in ways that the report said were "untimely,
inaccurate and incomplete."
It is critical of the Marine division commander, Maj. Gen. Richard A.
Huck, and the regimental commander, Col. Stephen W. Davis, for
fostering a perception that civilian Iraqi lives were not as important
as American lives and for failing to investigate the civilian deaths
in Haditha, lawyers who read the report said.
Lawyers for the four officers charged with dereliction of duty - a
lieutenant colonel, two captains and a first lieutenant - disagreed
Saturday with the report's conclusions about them.
"Colonel Chessani, Colonel Davis and General Huck all viewed this -
and still do - as a legitimate combat action," said Brian J. Rooney, a
civilian lawyer for Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, who was relieved of
his command and is the highest-ranking officer known publicly to be
punished in the Haditha matter. "That same night and the next morning
Colonel Chessani reported up the chain of command what he had learned
about the attacks," including that marines had killed civilians. "I
don't know how that's untimely, inaccurate and incomplete."
The Bargewell report, which was recently declassified, also
established that junior officers, including a captain who issued a
news release on the episode that blamed a roadside bomb planted by
insurgents for most of the deaths, knew from the beginning that
marines had killed the civilians, the lawyers said.
The captain, Jeffrey S. Pool, told General Bargewell's investigators
that he was given reports from battalion commanders that accurately
described the marines' killing of civilians, said lawyers who read the
report. But Captain Pool said he issued a news release blaming
insurgents for the deaths because he believed that the killings were
ultimately a direct result of the roadside bombing of the marines, the
lawyers said.
"The way I saw it was this," Captain Pool told two colonels
questioning him, according to a lawyer who read the report to a
reporter. "A bomb blast went off, or was initiated, that is what
started, that is the reason they're getting this, is a bomb blew up,
killed people. We killed people back, and that's the story." (Since
the investigation, the captain has been promoted to major and is again
working as a public affairs officer in Anbar Province.)
Lawyers for the four officers charged with failing to properly
investigate the civilian killings blame the inaccurate news release
for creating the false perception that the Marine Corps chain of
command had covered up the killing of civilians. But one lawyer also
said that the captain's thinking reflected that of his superiors, who
believed that civilian casualties, though regrettable, were an
inevitable part of war.
"That's the rubric that the whole division was operating under," the
lawyer said. The report, he said, came to a similar conclusion. "It
just was the culture of the Marine Corps," he said, paraphrasing the
report, "to think that the Iraqis' story was propaganda, and didn't
investigate."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/world/middleeast/22haditha.html