New Details of the Haditha Massacre Emerge

Marine Squad Leader Ordered 5 Unarmed Iraqis Outside of Their Taxi, Then Shoots Them Dead

By RJ Schinner, 1/6/07 

On Nov. 19, 2005, US Marines retaliated for a roadside bomb attack on their convoy by murdering 24 Iraqi people, including many women and children, in the town of Haditha.  After months of cover-up, public exposure of the massacre has led to murder charges of four of the Marines.

The Washington Post recently obtained a report by the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service which sheds light on the sickening details of
Nov. 19, 2005.  One of the most outrageous accounts is how the Marine
squad’s leader, Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, murdered five people travelling
in a taxi.  The Washington Post quoted from the military’s report:

“The taxi’s five occupants exited the vehicle and according to U.S. and
Iraqi witnesses, were shot by Wuterich as they stood, unarmed, next to
the vehicle approximately ten feet in front of him.”

The Post article went on:

One of the witnesses, Sgt. Asad Amer Mashoot, a 26-year-old Iraqi
soldier who was in the Marine convoy, told investigators he watched in
horror as the four students and the taxi driver fell. “They didn’t even
try to run away,” he said. “We were afraid from Marines and we saw them
behaving like crazy. They were yelling and screaming.”…

…One marine told investigators that Wuterich “pumped bullets into the
bodies of the Iraqi men after they were on the ground and later
urinated on one of them”.

In addition to the cold-blooded murder of five people riding in a taxi,
Wuterich also ordered the Marines to raid houses and “shoot first, ask
questions later”.  The Post article described two examples of the
results of such orders:

9-year-old Haditha survivor Eman Hamed

Nine-year-old Eman Hamed told investigators that a grenade landed near
her grandfather’s bed and exploded, sending shrapnel through the room.
Her mother and 4-year-old brother were killed as she huddled, injured,
with another brother, Abid, 6, who survived. “All rooms,” Abid told
investigators. “They were shooting in all rooms.”…

…Safah Yunis Salem, 13, who said she played dead to avoid being shot,
was the only person to survive the Marine attack on the second house.
Her sister Aisha, 3, was shot in the leg and died; her brother Zainab,
5, was killed by a shot to the head. She said she lost five other
members of her family in the room, including her mother.

“He fired and killed everybody,” Safah said. “The American fired and killed everybody.”

Not only was this massacre ordered by the Marine squad leader and
carried out in the most brutal way, but it was also covered up by the
military.  As the Post article reported:

Numerous Marine officers in the chain of command in Iraq — including a
major general — knew about the civilian deaths almost immediately but
did not launch an investigation for months, according to interview
transcripts. Some lower-level officers did not believe that the Marines
had done anything inappropriate, while high-ranking officers had
limited information about the incident and did not inquire further.

The conduct of the Marines in Haditha over a year ago was not an
aberration, but the result of an unjust and murderous war, and is
entirely constistent with the Bush administration’s policies and
practices in the war.  From white phosphorous chemicals burning the
skin of Iraqis; to the whole city of Fallujah being blockaded, bombed,
and its residents all treated as targets; to torture of detainees at
military bases like Abu Ghraib; war crimes have been ordered by the
highest levels of the military and government.

And the massacres have not stopped since Haditha was exposed and a few
Marines charged.  On Dec. 8, 2006, two homes were reduced to rubble and
at least 20 people, including 6 women and 5 children, were left dead,
their bodies charred and unrecognizable, in the town of Ishaqi.

As more details come to light of the horrifying nature of the Haditha
massacre, this brings home all the more the reality that the US
government is conducting war crimes in Iraq on a massive scale. 
Moreover, no one in a position of power is even talking about these
crimes, let alone stopping them.  The Iraq Study Group report didn’t
mention Haditha, and the Democrats’ talk of a new direction in Iraq has
not uttered a word about stopping these war crimes.  Bush’s likely plan
for more troops and an escalation of the war will only lead to more
massacres.

It’s up to us to bring these war crimes to a halt.  If you’ve been
sitting on the sidelines waiting for someone in power to stop the war,
if you’ve been using whatever brand of excuse NOT to come out into the
streets in protest – in short, if you’ve been passively accepting the
fact that your government is committing war crimes – scroll up, read
again what happened in Haditha, and ask yourself what you’re going to
do about it.

The World Can’t Wait!  Drive Out the Bush Regime!

(All quotes taken from “Death in Haditha”, The Washington Post, 1/6/07, Page A01.)

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