Marines cleared in Iraqi deaths in Ishaqi
After confirming investigation earlier, sources now say soldiers have been cleared.
Update 6 p.m. ET
US officials have said that marines accused of participating in the deaths of 11 Iraqis in Ishaqi, Iraq, have been cleared of all charges. Earlier Friday, the Pentagon confirmed it had been investigating the charges. Reuters reports that a US military probe has
exonerated the troops, "finding American forces followed standard procedures and committed no misconduct, defense officials said on Friday." Earlier on Friday, the military said it was investigating the incident.
The Ishaqi incident was one of a handful involving civilian deaths being investigated by the U.S. military, including the deaths of 24 civilians in the town of Haditha last November. Police in Ishaqi, 60 miles (100 km) north of Baghdad, have said six adults and five children were shot dead in a US military raid on a home on March 15. The US military maintains there were four dead in the incident, including a guerrilla, two women and a child, and said they died after troops were fired upon from the house as they arrived to arrest an al Qaeda suspect ... The officials said a military fact-finding inquiry determined that US forces followed proper procedures and that the civilian deaths were unintentional.
The deaths occurred during a raid by US troops searching for an Al Qaeda suspect. The suspect fled but was later arrested. The military says another Al Qaeda suspect in the house opened fire, which was returned by the US troops. That gunman was killed in the fight.
The US troops then pulled back and called in air support from an AC-130 gunship, and U.S. forces then fired on the house, the official said. No further investigation of the incident is planned by the US military, the official said.
End of update
The US Defense department says it is investigating allegations of another shooting by US troops of civilians, including women and children, during a March 2006 raid in Iraq.
CNN reports that
this most recent incident took place in the Abu Seffa district in the town of Ishaqi.
Iraqi police said 11 people were killed in a US-led raid against a suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq site, including five children – the youngest 6 months old – four women, and two men were killed. The US military provided a lower casualty count, saying an insurgent, two women and a child were killed.
At the time, the US military said its troops came under fire during the raid, and the building was destroyed by air and ground fire. Troops then took into custody for questioning a man believed to be a "foreign fighter facilitator."
But, at the same time, a local Iraqi police official told CNN that eyewitnesses said the US troops had kept "an entire family" in a room before shooting them, and then blowing up the house. The official also told CNN that police later found bullet casings in the house that could only belong to US troops.
The
Toronto Star reports that the US military agreed to launch a new investigation after it was
presented with a videotape of what appeared to be the bodies of the people killed in the fighting. The video in question was given to the
BBC by a Sunni political group opposed to coalition forces, and challenges the US version of what happened in the house.
The new allegations came on a day the Iraqi government said it would launch its own probe into the alleged massacre at Haditha by US Marines last November, using unusually harsh language to condemn the behavior of Americans on the ground. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the alleged Nov. 19, 2005, revenge killing of 24 civilians a "horrible crime" and said such disrespect for Iraqi life had become widespread.
Earlier in the day, Maj.-Gen. William Caldwell told a press briefing in Baghdad there were "at least three or four" other investigations underway into deaths of civilians at the hands of coalition troops, although he offered no details.
In another incident,
Reuters reports that military prosecutors plan to file
murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against seven marines and a Navy corpsman in the death of an Iraqi civilian in April of this year.
Marine officials "told us charges would come Friday, but then let us know they probably will not release them until Monday," said attorney David Brahms, who declined to identify his clients.
The eight men are being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton in the April 26 killing of a Hamandiya man and a subsequent attempt to make the dead Iraqi appear to be an insurgent by placing an AK-47 near his body.
The
Washington Post reported Thursday that the US investigation into how Marine commanders
handled reporting the events in Haditha last November will find "that some officers gave false information to their superiors, who then failed to adequately scrutinize reports that should have caught their attention, an Army official said yesterday."
[Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, who is leading the probe] has pursued two lines of investigation: not only whether falsehoods were passed up the chain of command, but also whether senior Marine commanders were derelict in their duty to monitor the actions of subordinates. The inquiry is expected to conclude by the end of this week, the official added. He said there were multiple failures but declined to say whether he would characterize it as a "coverup," as alleged recently by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine.
The report will also conclude that the marines who were called in to clean up after the shootings failed to report that the victims had been shot execution style. If they had, an investigation would have started earlier.
The Post reports on Friday that the delay in starting the investigation means that the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (an independent criminal investigative agency that is not in the military chain of command)
faces an uphill battle to find proof of the charges, and so has asked surviving family members if the bodies of those shot may be exhumed in order to look for evidence.
"I think it's going to be a very difficult case for them to prove," said Vaughan Taylor, a former military prosecutor and instructor in criminal law at the Army's Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School. On balance, he said, he would rather be a defense counsel in the case than prosecute for the government.
"I think there's plenty of avenues for defense in this case – the fact that it wasn't initially investigated, the fact that there's been plenty of time for witnesses to play with stories. There's a lot of wiggle room in there."
In the wake of recent allegations of US troops killing Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha, the US Army says its troops in Iraq are to have ethical training. The
BBC reports that move
may be greeted with cynicism by many Iraqis, who have long been accused of targeting civilians before, but no one listened until the Haditha story became public.
Also...
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Iran nuclear bomb 'in 10 years' (BBC)
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War is messy (FoxNews)
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US Troops to Get Ethics Training in Iraq (AP)
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Letter sheds light on 1950 US massacre of civilians at No Gun Ri (US News & World Report)
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