Marine: Haditha deaths didn't need probe

[Barrett808]

Source: Associated Press

Marine: Haditha deaths didn't need probe
By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A Marine major who inspected the Iraqi homes where Marines killed 24 people testified Saturday that the gore left even 10 days after the gruesome sweep stamped searing images in his mind.

Hours after a comrade's killing in a roadside bombing, the Marines had cleared the houses in the town of Haditha with grenades and machine gun fire.

"That's the most blood I have ever seen," said Maj. Dana Hyatt, a civil affairs officer for the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines at the time.

Despite that visceral reaction, Hyatt — like other Marines who have testified in the past several days in the preliminary hearing for Capt. Randy W. Stone — said he did not think the deaths warranted further investigation.

...

The Marine Corps asserts that the 24 slain were civilians, but Hyatt testified that eight of the dead were insurgents, a claim that has not been verified.

Marines cleaning up the remains — including those of women, children and the elderly — ran out of body bags and put some corpses in trash bags, said Hyatt, who visited the morgue the night after the killings. More than a week later, and at the request of the town council, Hyatt examined the rooms where the bodies had been and saw blood-spattered beds and hair stuck in the ceiling.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070513/ap_on_re_us/marines_haditha

[babylonsister]

1. Appalling. What alternate universe is he living in? nt

[Drum]

2. 'I was horrified, but....'

Can you have it both ways? Really??

:eyes:

[gratuitous]

3. And when the locals complained, their concerns were dismissed

It's not in this account, but other stories I've seen about Haditha include a protest from the town council, which was summarily dismissed as "propaganda" by the military. But this paragraph from the story is just as appalling:

"Military rules compel troops to report and probe suspected law of war violations. Gittins argued that if no crime was suspected to have occurred, and if no one else in Stone's regiment saw a need to investigate, then Stone should not be singled out."

The bodies of 24 men, women and children turn up inexplicably dead, and nobody anywhere in the Marine Corps chain of command even suspects that a crime may have occurred. Perhaps we should relieve the military of its duty to investigate and prosecute itself, if this is their reaction to finding 24 dead bodies full of American made ammunition.

[sanskritwarrior]

5. All sides are using American made ammo

I am happy that this probe is occuring, but I also agree with the Major, seeing 24 dead Iraqis is not surprising. I'm a Senior NCO in the Army and I have found 18 dead bodies once in Ramadi.......Killed by insurgents that had stolen weapons from 3 Marines that had been separated and killed...........

[scarface2004]

4. whose training these storm troopers?!?!

enough with the war crimes! end this fiasco immediately or else!