Murtha Says Haditha Incident Worse than Reported Earlier
18th May 2006
by gordo
Photo from My Lai massacre, Vietnam war (see note)
Rep. Jack Murtha (R-PA) says that Haditha incident, in which at least 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by US Marines, was even worse than had been reported:
“It’s much worse than was reported in Time magazine,” Murtha, a Democrat, former Marine colonel and Vietnam war veteran, told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“There was no firefight. There was no [bomb] that killed those innocent people,” Murtha explained, adding there were “about twice as many” Iraqis killed than Time had reported.
No official investigation report has been released by the Pentagon and a spokesman for Murtha was unable to add to the congressman’s remarks.
(snip)
Murtha said combat stress prompted the Marines’ alleged rampage.
“It’s a very serious incident, unfortunately. It shows the tremendous pressure that these guys are under every day when they’re out in combat,” he said. “One man was killed with an [improvised explosive device] and after that they actually went into the houses and killed women and children.”
Time magazine spent 10 weeks interviewing local residents affected by the incident and, in January, shared these accounts with military officials in Baghdad. The accounts directly conflicted with the Corps’ initial stance that the civilian casualties were the result of the insurgent attack.
The civilians were killed by members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. So far, three officers from the unit have been relieved of command, including two captains and a lieutenant colonel. The Marines say that the officers’ removal was unrelated to the incident.
Initially, the Marines said that civilians killed during the incident had been killed by a roadside bomb set by insurgents. Time magazine investigated the claim and found that the civilians were all killed by Marines. The Marines have since conceded this point.
As the war wears on, and American soldiers take more casualties, we can expect more incidents in which they are implicated in civilian deaths. This is a pattern common to virtually all counter-insurgency operations.
NOTE:
The My Lai massacre took place in March of 1968. Like the Haditha incident, initial reports indicated that Marines had taken fire and that any civilians had been killed either by airstrikes, artillery, or by crossfire. In reality, Task Force Barker’s C Company did not encounter the enemy, and killed as many as 500 of the village’s 700 residents in a deliberate fashion. They began killing at 8 a.m., broke for lunch at 11, and began hunting down and killing hidden survivors.
An Army photographer, Ron Haberle, recorded the incident. In the photograph above, the 16-year-old girl on the left had just escaped a rape attempt. She holds her nephew. The woman in red was a from a neighboring village, and was in My Lai selling fish sauce. After taking the photo, Haberle began to walk away, and heard gunfire. When he turned around, all of the people in this photo were dead.
(via Oliver Willis)
May 18th, 2006 at 10:55 am
I didn’t used to be in the “pull out now- it can’t be any worse than what we already created there” but I’m coming around. First torture, now this. How have we created an environment so different from under Hussein?
May 18th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Cassandra–
I became a member of what I call the Catholic Coalition (OMG! Pull out! Pull out!) on August 14. Here’s the letter I sent to the Washington Post:
Regarding the August 14 article, “U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq”:
Of course, they didn’t print it. That’s when I decided that I needed a website. Since then, virtually everything that’s happened has convinced me that our continued presence in Iraq helps no-one. For example, see here.
May 18th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Yes, and we know from experience that as wars go on atrocities such as what you originally posted are not only going to continue, but escalate and get worse.
You can bet such an incident is going to incite more violence .
May 18th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Characterizing our troops with Saddam Hussein is despicable.
My Lai - the perpetrators of this tragic incident of a military crime were tried and punished.
What is the point of all this?
If a police officer is convicted of being corrupt, does that mean the entire police force is corrupt? Does that mean that our police should be compared to the Gestapo?
I have personally witnessed the cruelty and barbarism of Saddam Hussein and his henchment in 1991 - it was more than you could imagine.
Sorry about getting off the subject, but how come you are not praising President Bush for his “Guest Worker” Amnesty program proposal - sanctioned by your buddy, Senator T. Kennedy?
Gordo:
Interesting code security deal you added. Been super busy and away for awhile.
May 18th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Keith–
The only person punished for My Lai was Lt. Calley. Calley served 3 1/2 years. So that was the total pushishment meted out for hundreds of murders. 3 1/2 years. And if they hadn’t brought a photographer along, there probably would have been no punishment for anyone.
And My Lai was just the worst of the incidents. On a smaller scale, the same thing happened at Thanh Phong, Son Thang, and pretty much wherever the infamous Tiger Force went.
Of course I’m not saying that such crimes are typical, only that we know that they will happen anytime we put put 100,000+ soldiers into a guerilla war. We also know from experience that such incidents become more common as the war drags on. Nearly all of the incidents in Vietnam happened after 1967.
The point of reporting the story is to illustrate that there it’s quite possible that our presence in Iraq is causing the Iraqis more harm than good. Whether I put it on my blog or not, you can be sure that the Iraqis know of these incidents when they occur. As they inevitably become more common, the insurgency will become more violent, and ordinary Iraqis will be caught in the middle.
Note that I’m not saying that incidents of American crimes will become more common. The overwhelming majority of the war crimes committed by our side in Vietnam were committed by South Vietnamese and Korean troops. But the US is identified in the Iraqi mind with the government that we support, and forces from that governmet are widely believed to be committing far worse crimes than anything that happened at Haditha.
For my take on Bush’s proposal, see here:
http://www.appletreeblog.com/?p=495
Predictably, I liked the aspects of the proposal that you hated.
As for the spam blocker, I had to change from Akismet because it began blocking ALL of the comments. Akismet worked better than this one when it functioned properly, but if you should run into the same problem, you can pick up a comment preview plugin here that includes this spam blocker (you don’t have to turn on the spam blocker to use the preview. I use a different preview function myself).