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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3916264.html
This just proves that the Marines in Iraq are not helping out the situation. They should retreat to Kuwait or somewhere and let the civil war take place. If things get outta hand then they can step back in. Killings like this are just going to ruin the soldiers lives as well as the families involved and completely ruin any cooperation that they might have recieved from locals. How many more "terrorists" did this create? You can be if they did this to my family I'd be one of them. Iraq is a job for the UN at this point rather than the US armed forces because at least then no single country is to blame. The US motto in Iraq should be "winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis...by splattering them all over the streets".
Don't believe me? Here's the latest.....Marines shot and killed two women including one pregnant lady on the way to the hospital to give birth......
www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/31/iraq.main/index.html
Findings counter claims by Marines
Death records showed all the Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha had been shot
New York Times
WASHINGTON - A military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by Marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November had been the victims of a roadside bomb, according to a senior military official in Iraq.
Among the evidence that conflicted with the Marines' story were death certificates that showed all the victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said.
The inquiry, being led by Col. Gregory Watt, an Army officer in Baghdad, was the first official investigation into an episode first uncovered by Time magazine in January and that American military officials now say appears to have been an unprovoked attack by the Marines that killed 24 Iraqi civilians. The results of Watt's investigation have not previously been disclosed.
When Watt described the findings on March 9 to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, senior ground commander in Iraq, it raised enough questions about the Marines' veracity that Chiarelli referred the matter to the senior Marine commander, who ordered a criminal investigation.
The findings by Watt also prompted Chiarelli to order a parallel investigation into whether senior Marine officers and enlisted personnel had engaged in a cover-up.
Watt's inquiry included interviews with Marines believed to be involved in the killings as well as with senior officers in the unit.
In their accounts to Watt, the Marines said they took gunfire from the first of five residences they entered near the bomb site, the senior military official said.
The official also said the Marines had recalled hearing "a weapon being prepared to be used against them."
Watt also reviewed payments totaling $38,000 in cash made to families of victims.
In an interview Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt, the officer who made the payments, said he was told by superiors to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but was told that the rest of those killed had been deemed to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.
Chiarelli, an Army officer who had taken over command of American ground forces in Iraq in January, learned then that the Marines had not conducted an inquiry into the incident only after the Time magazine findings appeared the same month.
Iraq's new prime minister, meanwhile, said Tuesday his patience was wearing thin with excuses from U.S. troops that they kill civilians "by mistake" and suggested Iraq may seek to punish those culpable of wrongdoing in Haditha, Reuters reported.
"Yes, a mistake may happen, but there is an acceptable limit to mistakes," Nouri al-Maliki said. "We will ask for answers not only about Haditha but about any operation ... in which killing happened by mistake and we will hold those who did it responsible."
This just proves that the Marines in Iraq are not helping out the situation. They should retreat to Kuwait or somewhere and let the civil war take place. If things get outta hand then they can step back in. Killings like this are just going to ruin the soldiers lives as well as the families involved and completely ruin any cooperation that they might have recieved from locals. How many more "terrorists" did this create? You can be if they did this to my family I'd be one of them. Iraq is a job for the UN at this point rather than the US armed forces because at least then no single country is to blame. The US motto in Iraq should be "winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis...by splattering them all over the streets".
Don't believe me? Here's the latest.....Marines shot and killed two women including one pregnant lady on the way to the hospital to give birth......
www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/31/iraq.main/index.html