Inquiry Suggests Marines Excised Files on Killings
By DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — A high-level military investigation into the
killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha last November has uncovered instances
in which American marines involved in the episode appear to have
destroyed or withheld evidence, according to two Defense Department
officials briefed on the case.
The investigation found that an official company logbook of the unit
involved had been tampered with and that an incriminating video taken by
an aerial drone the day of the killings was not given to investigators
until Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq,
intervened, the officials said.
Those findings, contained in a long report that was completed last month
but not made public, go beyond what has been previously reported about
the case. It has been known that marines who carried out the killings
made misleading statements to investigators and that senior officers
were criticized for not being more aggressive in investigating the case,
in which most or all of the Iraqis who were killed were civilians. But
this is the first time details about possible concealment or destruction
of evidence have been disclosed.
The report’s findings have been sent to the Naval Criminal Investigative
Service, which is investigating members of the unit involved in the
killings, as well as higher-ranking officers in the Second Marine
Division. No charges have been brought yet.
The report, based on an investigation by Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell of
the Army, does not directly accuse marines of attempting a cover-up, but
it does describe several suspicious incidents, according to the Defense
Department officials.
It says that the logbook, which was meant to be a daily record of major
incidents the marines’ company encountered, had all the pages missing
for Nov. 19, the day of the killings, and that those portions had not
been found, the officials said.
No conclusions are drawn about who may have tampered with the log. But
the report says that Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the leader of the
squad involved in the killings, was on duty at the unit’s operations
center, where the logbook was kept, shortly after the killings occurred,
the officials said.
Neal A. Puckett, a lawyer for Sergeant Wuterich, was unavailable to comment.
Investigators were also initially told by Marine officers that videotape
taken by the drone was not available, one of the officials said. The
officials added that the marines produced the tape only after General
Bargewell had completed his inquiry and they had been asked again to
produce it by General Chiarelli.
The report has been closely held within the Defense Department, and the
officials who agreed to discuss it did so because they said they thought
it should receive wider public attention. They agreed to speak only if
their names were not published because they had not been authorized by
superiors to discuss its contents.
The deaths occurred outside the town of Haditha after a three-vehicle
convoy of marines was hit by a roadside bomb, killing a lance corporal.
The squad then began going through houses nearby, killing Iraqis found
inside in what defense lawyers have said was a justifiable use of lethal
force by marines who believed they were under concerted attack by
insurgents.
The Marine Corps issued a press release the next day saying that 15 of
the civilian deaths had been caused by the bomb explosion. But several
officers in the unit have said they knew even then that marines had
killed all 24 of the dead Iraqis, 9 of whom were suspected insurgents.
Since then, the idea that any of the victims were insurgents has been
challenged, both by Iraqi survivors and by some American military
officials familiar with the case, noting that the victims included 10
women and children and an elderly man in a wheelchair. They have said
that evidence suggests that the marines overreacted after the death of
their fellow marine and shot the civilians in cold blood.
Marines have told investigators that at least one Iraqi who was shot was
brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle. But no records were found that such
a weapon was recovered at the scene and turned in to the unit’s
headquarters, as regulations require, the officials said.
Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps spokesman, said: “The Marine Corps
is committed to a full and thorough investigation of the events that
occurred at Haditha on Nov. 19, and the actions that followed that may
have contributed to any improper reporting. If allegations of wrongdoing
are substantiated, the Marine Corps will pursue appropriate legal and
administrative actions.”
The decision about whether to take disciplinary action will be made by
Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of Marine Corps units in the
Middle East, based on his review of both the Bargewell report and the
results of the criminal investigation still under way.
In addition to faulting officers in the Second Marine Division for not
aggressively investigating the Haditha killings, the Bargewell report
said the commanders had created a climate that minimized the importance
of Iraqi lives, particularly in Haditha, where insurgent attacks were
rampant, the officials said.
“In their eyes, they didn’t believe anyone was innocent,” said one of
the officials, describing the attitude of the marines in the unit toward
Iraqis. “Either you were an active participant, or you were complicit.”
Two days after the Haditha killings, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, then the
division commander, asked his staff for a briefing on what had happened,
the officials said. General Huck later told investigators that he had
ordered the briefing because he was concerned about the reports of
civilian casualties, one of the officials said.
But the briefing provided to General Huck contained no mention of the
civilian casualties, the investigators learned. Instead, according to
one of the officials, it dealt almost entirely with the roadside bomb
attack and other insurgent attacks on marines in Haditha throughout the day.
General Huck and other officers from the Second Marine Division have
been ordered not to talk about the case, and a telephone call to the
unit was referred to Colonel Gibson, the Marine spokesman. But some
senior officers have previously defended their response to the killings,
saying there was no reason to doubt the account provided by enlisted
marines at the time, contending that civilian killings were an
unfortunate but accidental byproduct of their pursuit of insurgents.
The involved marines’ battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani,
and their company commander, Capt. Lucas McConnell, told investigators
that they had not reviewed the scene within the houses after the
killings, despite the high number of civilian casualties, one of the
officials said. Colonel Chessani was relieved of his command in April;
Marine officials would not say whether the Haditha case was involved in
the decision but said there were several reasons.
The video taken by the overhead drone was very limited, according to one
of the officials. The aircraft was not flying over the site until after
the bomb attack, so it only captured the aftermath. Even so, the video
appears to contradict statements by marines about what occurred, the
officials said.
In particular, it has raised doubts about a claim by enlisted marines
that five Iraqis were shot as they were running away after the roadside
bombing.
The officials said the video showed the bodies of the five Iraqis on the
ground close to the car that they had been riding in, the officials
said. In one case, the video appears to show one body stacked on top of
another, which the officials said was inconsistent with the account that
the men had been shot while fleeing.
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