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| Marines at Haditha--by someone who was there |
kindj |
06/01/06 |
A reporter's shock at the Haditha allegations
By Arwa Damon
CNN
Wednesday, May 31, 2006; Posted: 9:02 p.m. EDT (01:02 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- It actually took me a while to put all the pieces together -- that I know these guys, the U.S. Marines at the heart of the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
I don't know why it didn't register with me until now. It was only after scrolling through the tapes that we shot in Haditha last fall, and I found footage of some of the officers that had been relieved of their command, that it hit me.
I know the Marines that were operating in western al Anbar, from Husayba all the way to Haditha. I went on countless operations in 2005 up and down the Euphrates River Valley. I was pinned on rooftops with them in Ubeydi for hours taking incoming fire, and I've seen them not fire a shot back because they did not have positive identification on a target.
I saw their horror when they thought that they finally had identified their target, fired a tank round that went through a wall and into a house filled with civilians. They then rushed to help the wounded -- remarkably no one was killed.
I was with them in Husayba as they went house to house in an area where insurgents would booby-trap doors, or lie in wait behind closed doors with an AK-47, basically on suicide missions, just waiting for the Marines to come through and open fire. There were civilians in the city as well, and the Marines were always keenly aware of that fact. How they didn't fire at shadows, not knowing what was waiting in each house, I don't know. But they didn't.
And I was with them in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians.
I'm told that investigators now strongly suspect a rampage by a small number of Marines who snapped after one of their own was killed by a roadside bomb.
Haditha was full of IEDs. It seemed they were everywhere, like a minefield. In fact, the number of times that we were told that we were standing right on top of an IED minutes before it was found turned into a dark joke between my CNN team and me.
In fact, when we initially left to link up with the company that we were meant to be embedded with, the Humvee that I was in was hit by an IED. Another 2 inches and we would have been killed. Thankfully, no one was injured.
We missed the beginning of the operation, and ended up entering Haditha that evening. The city was empty of insurgents, or they had gone into hiding as they so often do, blending with the civilian population, waiting for U.S. and Iraqi forces to sweep through and then popping up again.
But this time, after this operation, the Marines and the Iraqi Army were not going to pull out, they were going to set up fixed bases.
Now, all these months later, while watching the tapes, I found a walk and talk with one of the company commanders that was relieved of his duty as a result of the Haditha probe.
After being hit by an IED, his men were searching the area and found a massive weapons cache in a mosque. Although it wasn't his company that we were embedded with, the Marines had taken me to the mosque so we could get footage of the cache.
And so began the e-mails and phone calls between myself and my two other CNN crew members, Jennifer Eccleston and Gabe Ramirez: Do you remember when we were talking with the battalion commander and his intel guy right outside the school and then half an hour later they found an IED in that spot? Do you remember when we were sitting chatting with them at the school? And all the other "do you remember whens."
There was also -- can you believe it? -- the allegations of the Haditha probe.
A little dose of reality to mix with the specualtion and rhetoric. Wait to pass judgement, please.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Words of wisdom from a CNN reporter? I do believe I might faint....
DK |
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 06/02/06 3:14 pm:
btw : twice on this board this incident has been compared to My Lai. For the record ,there is no comparison to be made .
The facts about My Lai
The Village was a suspected hideout of the 48th Batallion of the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (NLF);the Viet Cong.
A raid was organized with the intent to destroy the village . Commanders of Charlie Company told the troops that there were no civilians in the village and that anyone in it could be considered VC. In this war body count was a measure of success. Captain Ernest Medina was asked whether the order included the killing of women and children.It is unclear what his exact response was but it was sufficiently ambiguous .
The soldiers found no insurgents in the village but some platoons like the one led by Lt. William Calley killed hundreds of civilians (the exact toll is unclear but as high as over 500 were reported ).Many were tortured and raped . Many were herded into a ditch and fired upon. Calley threatened to throw a grenade into the ditch .
There would've been even more killing if not for the action of a helicopter pilot Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr. who threatened to turn his ships guns on the troops if they did not stop.
The coverup of this incident was undertaken at the highest levels of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade.Ron Ridenhour a soldier who had learned about the incident 2nd hand from members of Charlie company wrote letters to President Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous members of Congress which was largely ignored . However the military did try Calley and 25 other officers ann enlisted men .Calley was charged with multiple counts of pre-meditated murder .He was convicted but only served 3 1/2 years of house arrest before Federal Judge J. Robert Elliot ordered him free .None of the others were convicted including Calley's superior Captain Ernest Medina.
The public still did not know about the incident until Calley related it to Seymore Hirsh.
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 06/02/06 4:22 pm:
It seems to me that the terrorists learned a few things from the VC tactics.
the stories never tell of the restraint by our troops that sometimes cost them their lives ;That moments hesitiation when they fix target on the insurgent only to see that they are shielded by children .In fact the only time our trooops merit mention by the MSM is when they screw up or die.
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