Haditha Testimony

18 July, 2007. 480 words.

I saw a post go through the Virginia blogosphere yesterday declaring that the “Haditha hoax is falling apart.” It turns out this was actually the declaration of noted journalist Rush Limbaugh, after having read some opinion column at a newspaper nobody has ever heard of. I have also seen several reports this year from a place called “NewsMax” repeatedly stating that the Haditha Marines will be exonerated any minute now, but I haven’t given them much credence since the NewsMax organization has a very clear bias in this case. At any rate, the accumulation of conservative-themed rumors finally inspired me to investigate what we really know about the Haditha case.

Recall that Haditha is the name of the Iraqi town where U.S. Marines are accused of killing 24 innocent civilians to avenge the death of their comrade in an IED explosion back in 2005. When I last wrote about Haditha at the end of 2006, four Marines had been charged with murder: Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, and Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum. Four other Marines were charged with dereliction of duty in the ensuing investigation. Since December, Sgt. Dela Cruz has been granted immunity in exchange for his testimony, and he has testified that Staff Sgt. Wuterich shot five surrendering Iraqis. The defense argued that Dela Cruz has given several different accounts of the incident.

Just recently, a UK Guardian article described testimony that Lance Cpl. Tatum gave orders to shoot women and children before allegedly doing so himself, though the actual killing was apparently not witnessed. The Guardian article also states that a hearing officer has recommended dropping the murder charges against Lance Cpl. Sharratt, so it seems the murder investigation is focusing on Wuterich and Tatum at this point.

I’m all for giving our Marines the benefit of the doubt, and we still don’t know all the details of the incident, but if these two really did what they are said to have done, there needs to be some punishment for it. I can understand how any civilian in Iraq might be a threat, but I can’t understand shooting a group of guys with their arms up or especially shooting women and children hunkered down in the corner of a room. Obviously you’d want to keep a close eye on them, but if they weren’t brandishing weapons or reaching for the triggers of their suicide vests or somehow trying to impede the Marines, I can’t see how they could be considered legitimate threats under any civilized rules of engagement. But again, we don’t know all the details. If the Marines were under fire at the time, for example, I can easily see how they could make mistakes in the heat of the moment. I’m not sure that would be a moral justification, but it should at least mitigate the murder charges.

Related