Marines face trials in Haditha deaths

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2007
CAMP PENDLETON -- A Marine lieutenant colonel and a lance corporal have been ordered to stand trial on charges stemming from the 2005 killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, the Marine Corps announced Friday.

Of eight initial defendants in the case, they are the only two who have been ordered to court-martial. The case involves the largest number of civilian deaths of any alleged abuse case involving Marines in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, a former battalion commander, will face a court-martial on charges of dereliction of duty and failing to obey a direct order in not ordering a full-scale investigation into whether the killings constituted a war crime.

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum will face charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.

Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, who made the court-martial decisions, followed the recommendation of a hearing officer and dismissed charges of murder against Tatum.

Three other enlisted Marines were initially accused of murder in the case, but charges were dropped against two and remain pending against another. Of three other officers initially charged with dereliction of duty, charges have been dropped against two and remain pending against a third.

Chessani, 42, of Colorado, was commander of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Tatum, 26, of Oklahoma was a veteran of the bloody fighting in Fallouja in late 2004.

Mattis, who will leave Camp Pendleton soon to assume another command, has yet to announce his decision about Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, who was the squad leader and initially charged with 12 counts of unpremeditated murder. A hearing officer has recommended that Wuterich face a lesser number of negligent homicide charges, but Mattis is not bound by the recommendation.

In fact, in sending Tatum to court-martial, Mattis rejected a recommendation by Lt. Col. Paul Ware, the hearing officer, to dismiss the entire case against him.

During his preliminary hearing, Tatum made a tearful statement of regret for the deaths of Iraqi civilians, but said he was firing only at "shapes" in a dimly lighted room and was unaware that there were women and children in the line of fire.

Tatum's attorneys issued a statement saying that sending the case to trial "imperils every young Marine and soldier who faces a split-second decision in combat."

The Haditha incident began when a roadside bomb exploded beneath a Marine convoy, killing one Marine and injuring two. When a car came upon the scene, five young men were ordered out and fatally shot under circumstances that remain disputed.

Marines then killed 19 other Iraqis -- including three women and seven children -- while searching houses for insurgents. No insurgents were found.

After a cursory review, Marine officers, including a two-star general, concluded that the civilian killings, though tragic, had been the result of a battle between Marines and insurgents.

But months later, Time magazine quoted Iraqis as disputing the Marines' version and suggesting that the Marines had gone on a vengeful rampage. The military launched investigations.

In December, four enlisted Marines were charged with murder, and four officers with dereliction of duty for not conducting a more thorough investigation to see whether the killings amounted to war crimes.

Of the four enlisted Marines, Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz had charges dropped. After a preliminary hearing, Mattis dropped charges against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt.

Mattis also dismissed dereliction of duty charges against Capt. Lucas McConnell, the company commander; and Capt. Randy Stone, a Marine lawyer.

Charges are pending against Lt. Andrew A. Grayson, who is accused of telling an enlisted Marine to destroy pictures of the dead Iraqis before the pictures fell into investigators' hands.

mailto:tony.perry@latimes.com


If found guilty I hope they get the book thrown at them. They give all those who serve and have served with honor a giant black eye.

Hmm? As I recall there Lost hope, Da Cant, your glee and Murk, if you can, Murtha’s proudly salivated over these headlines from the usual suspects of your Doomocracy's harangues.

Morass Spewing Negative Bellowing Communalists

Collaborating N eurotic’s Network

Collective’s B allyhooSystem





October 07, 2007

Report: Haditha 'Massacre' Planned by al Qaeda

Defend Our Marines has discovered a declassified intelligence summary detailing how al Qaeda operatives planned and executed the Haditha "massacre" in order to discredit US/Coalition forces:

October 6, 2007 – Buried in the mountain of exhibits attached to the once secret Haditha, Iraq murder inquiry prepared by US Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell is an obscure Marine Corps intelligence summary (see pdf) that says the deadly encounter was an intentional propaganda ploy planned and paid for by Al Qaeda foreign fighters.

The report is based on information from terrorist-insurgents captured following the Haditha incident.
During the November Haditha battle, the insurgents secreted themselves among local civilians to guarantee pursuing Marines would catch innocent civilians in the ensuing crossfire. On January 6, 2006 six insurgents who tried to do the same thing at another location in Haditha were turned in to Coalition authorities before they could mount a similar assault, the report says.

Help in spreading the propaganda from Democrats, notably Jack Murtha, and a compliant mainstream press was a bonus for the terrorists.

Here's a PDF of the report, which the press couldn't be bothered to include in their "analysis" of events.

Thanks to larwyn.

As to the question of jihadi video, well, who shot the video that Time magazine obtained in May 2006?
Update (bp): That last question is answered. First, the video’s producer:

Al-Haditha is 43 years old. He “created” Hammurabi 16 months ago. (Before that he worked directly under the head of Haditha’s hospital, Dr. Walid al-Obeidi, who pronounced that all the victims had been shot at close range.)

In fact, al-Haditha is one of Hammurabi’s only two members. He serves as its “Secretary General” while the only other member, Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani, performs as its “Chairman.” al-Mashhadani has some interesting connections too.

Now, let’s take a little closer look at one of the integral reporters who broke the Haditha story, courtesy of Sweetness and Light. It’s Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani, a Sunni who had been detained for five months because of images found on his camera and because of his “ties to the insurgents“. He had only been released a couple of weeks before he “stumbled upon” his big “scoop” on Haditha.

(In fact, he had recently been arrested again, and was only released on May 31st.) Conveniently, Ali al-Mashhadani is the reporter who supplied video footage of the corpses that were supposedly killed by the Marines. His video footage is solely responsible for prompting the investigation by the military.

The two al-Mashhadanis are brothers, and one of them was deeply involved in the insurgency. What are the odds that the other, the one who wrote the initial Haditha report for Reuters, wasn’t? Pretty low, I’d say.

So if you go back and look at the totality of blog reports on Haditha, reports like Dan Riehl’s cross-referencing and comparisons of conflicting witness testimony, and then look at the Marine document that’s the basis of this post, Haditha does start to look like an enemy ambush with after-action disinfo created to turn it into a “massacre.”

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/189676.php

Three dead men lying in the road after a firefight. Are they civilians or insurgents, whose weapons have merely been picked up?

How does one know? Some do notcare, they say they are all civilians if we kill them for some reason.

I have yet to hear how many civilians were in fact insurgents the press and bleeding heart OMG's conveniently lists as civilians in order to met their editors and benefactors story lines about this war of civilizations.

More importantly why do losers like cannon-less here, so called American's so willingly bending over in agenda of propaganda to give the insurgents the benefit of doubt, while willingly and deliberately giving our soldiers none, at all?

Initially Loser and friends ranted it was "cold blooded Murder, hang the bastards."

Now, in the truth and light, away from our Islamic enablers like Loser and his murking Murtha friend here, its settled down to dereliction of duty, disobeying a lawful order for 1 officer and for one enlisted Sgt, it is now a charge of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.

Even these cases have been recommended dismissed but that recommendation was overwritten for political expediency more than anything else.

P.S.

The last two (2) of my families 11 active Military have now returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. All 11 are now state side and will not likely deploy for at least 12 to 15 months or likely more...

BY THEN, the Doomocracy's surrender monkeys will have surrendered it all, I am confident...

I still lobby aggressively and hope they ALL will get it out.

They deserve a better America than we are giving them in our willingness to not sacrifice our self indulgence while obsessing in selfish petty, Gotcha, I am right, harangues of division instead of compromising in unity in betterment of us all.

America seems more and more unappreciative of their and most importantly, their families sacrifices. While many like Mr Left, Fits and Loser here are collaboratively willing to sale our defenders out to prove they are right about how bad America and Americans are, enabling in the process their Jihadist friends, who they deny will cut their throats in NY second if given the the slightest opportunity.


That is all!!

Thanks, Trader. I'd heard this before and am glad there is evidence to back it up now.


Sorry, LCannon. You lose.

If they have done heinous war crimes, lock them up and throw out the key. Being in the military is not a license to commit war crimes.

UPDATE


Full Story.............

Where are the headlines of exoneration??? Didn't see this in the local Gannett rag....
Murtha is a royal piece of sh!t. He might have been a Marine but he never was one. This bucket of vomit turns my stomach. You expect this kind of baseless accusation from Time magazine but for Murtha to abandon the code of Semper Fi is way beyond despicable. Typical democrat, all they want is power and fk anyone that gets in their way..................

Roger That!!

In the Corp we had a saying, we have two types of Officers, the kind that throw you on the Frag and the kind that throw themselves on the frag!

My best contrast is Jim Webb, as much as I disagree with him politically on many issues, he is a true Democrat of the latter throw himselves on the Frag lmarine Officer. Murtha, in the eyes of many Marines for sure now is generally considered "no real Marine's Marine." He is of course of the former "it is about me" the new DOOMocratic Putsch throw the trrops on the Frag type of Officer.

Sad really how we Americans consistently whine, complain and moan about how F**ked Congress is, decade in and decade out, yet, we never seem to grasp why we always vote as IF OUR district or Senate Congressional delegates are THE Exception to that over whleming consensus of 18% approval.

I got together $1000 from a few vets and we sent it, in 2006, to Diane Irey who ran against Murtha in 2006. He won 61% to 39%. He has been entrenched there sine 1973...

I have not even heard of an opposition candidate this time around.

That is all!!

Keep up the good fight Trader. It's gonna get alot worse before it gets better. We got a Carter rerun to get past.............

5 by 5, Roger that! AGS all the way! (Ammo up, Grub up and Shelter up)!

Time to keep your money short and liquid and as legally and as quick as possible, off-shore and or non-taxable, from the coming tsunami of nanny state same old tax it up, to-inflate it up, ring around the “Liber-saw entitled Obrama undertow,” we are in for.



That is all!!