The Haditha Hoax

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Lots of new information is coming out on the Haditha Marines, which I have written about extensively over the last year.

First, one of the Marines has had his charges completely dropped due to some evidence, well…a ton of evidence, that has come out that may exonerate them all:

Convincing evidence that corroborates NewsMax.com’s accounts of the Haditha insurgent ambush has compelled the prosecution to take extraordinary steps to bolster their crumbling case.

The stunning announcement that all charges are being dropped against Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz, formerly accused of murder in the Haditha incident where 24 Iraqis were killed during an insurgent ambush against the Marines, is indication that the prosecutors have a very weak case against all the defendants, lawyers for the some of the accused say.

[…]The announcement of the deal with Dela Cruz is further evidence that the cases against the Kilo Company Marines and several of their superior officers are in deep trouble. It comes on the heels of postponements of Article 32 hearings slated for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander and two of the enlisted men charged with murdering civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.

[…]In a nutshell, the case exploded when an intelligence officer dropped a bombshell on prosecutors during a pre-hearing interview when he revealed the existence of exculpatory evidence that appears to have been obtained by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and withheld from the prosecutors.

This officer, described by senior Marine Corps superiors as one of the best and most dedicated intelligence officers in the entire Marine Corps, was in possession of evidence which provided a minute-by-minute narrative of the entire day’s action — material which he had amassed while monitoring the day’s action in his capacity as the battalion’s intelligence officer. That material, he says, was also in the hands of the NCIS.

Much of that evidence remains classified, but it includes videos of the entire day’s action, including airstrikes against insurgent safe houses. Also included was all of the radio traffic describing the ongoing action between the men on the ground and battalion headquarters, and proof that the Marines were aware that the insurgents conducting the ambush of the Kilo Company troops were videotaping the action — the same video that after editing ended up in the hands of a gullible anti-war correspondent for Time magazine.

[…]Confronted by the massive mounds of evidence that Marine Corps sources tell NewsMax proves conclusively that the cases against the Haditha Marines are baseless, the prosecutors were forced to postpone the Article 31 against Lt. Col. Chessani and two of the enlisted men in an attempt to regroup.

By granting immunity to the officer on the scene of the house-clearing effort, the prosecution, lawyers say, has further weakened its case.

Newsmax then details what they have learned really happened that day:

NewsMax, however, can reveal that the facts of what happened early that November morning clearly show that the incident was part of a planned ambush by insurgent forces, that the civilians tragically killed in the were used as human shields by the insurgents, and that despite claims by Rep. John Murtha, there was indeed an ongoing firefight between the Marines and the enemy.

In short, what the intelligence officer provided, was a fully backed up account that puts the listener at the scene of the action and takes him though the entire day’s action. All of this information was made available to senior officers up the command ladder including the Battalion commander Lt. Col. Chessani.

It was so complete it eliminated any need for further investigation.

Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center attorney who questioned the officer, told NewsMax in a statement, "The intelligence officer is a crucial witness in this case. During his testimony, he effectively described the enemy situation prior to, during, and after the November 19 terrorist attack, providing the necessary context for the decisions that were made as a result. His testimony shows the complexity of the attack this day, the callousness of the terrorists toward the local civilians, whom they use to their advantage, and the error of viewing this incident in a vacuum.

"The officer also showed how the insurgents used allegations of wrongdoing by Marines as propaganda to support their cause. In fact, another witness, who was the assistant intelligence officer during the attack and is now the current intelligence officer for the battalion, testified that since the Haditha incident received so much negative attention, terrorist propaganda alleging law of war violations against American servicemen in Iraq has ‘ballooned.’"

But it’s still "cold blooded murder" right Mr. John Coward Murtha?  Al-Qaeda has taught their soldiers well on the use of our MSM and the internet and they have used it to great effect.  The Sheehans and ANSWERS eat this stuff up because they WANT to believe it.  They want to believe our country is evil, our soldiers are evil, that everything this country stands for is evil.  So an incident happens which looks bad, but before a complete investigation can be completed the anti-war faction inside the Government start leaking misinformation.

This is pretty much it in a nutshell.  In this interview with one of the defense attorneys representing some of the Haditha Marines, Mr. Brian Rooney, he lays out some of the leaks:

RS: There seems to be a coordinated program of damaging leaks directed against the Marines in this case. Especially the leak that John Murtha hinted came from the Commandant of the USMC. Can you give us other examples of leaks prejudicial to the Marines in this case. Any idea on why these leaks are happening or who is behind them?

BR: I was told from a very reliable source that the leaks of the NCIS investigation and the Bargewell report came from a anti-war politician on one of the armed services committee. All of the leaks have been given to Josh White of the Washington Post – his source is on one of the armed services committees. These leaks seem to come out every time press against these Marines starts getting favorable. Murtha for instance said that the Marines murdered in cold blood and officers covered it up – this was all done before Bargewell was complete – One of the main findings of Bargewell was there was “no cover-up.”

(editor’s note: the best source I can find that lists the leaks in chronological order is here .

But the mischaracterization of some of the information has been as damaging as the leaks. For instance, this article by the odious Tom Ricks:

Army Col. Gregory Watt was tapped to start an investigation and by March 9, he told Chiarelli that he had reached two conclusions, according to the Army officer.

One was that death certificates showed that the 24 Iraqis who died that day — the 15 the Marines said had died in the bomb blast and others they said were insurgents — had been killed by gunshot rather than a bomb, as the official statement had said. The other was that the Marine Corps had not investigated the deaths, as is the U.S. military’s typical procedure in Iraq, particularly when so many civilians are involved. Individually, either finding would have been disturbing. Together, they were stunning.

According to Rooney it is notable for two things. First, the investigation by Colonel Watt substantiated the Marines’ story. Secondly, there was no US military policy of investigating civilian deaths that occurred during combat. The Ricks story manufactures facts and circumstances out of whole cloth to create the impression of a massacre and cover up.

I have also revised my thinking on who has leaked some of the most damning allegations.

We know that Murtha linked his statement about the Marines committing "cold blooded murder" to the briefing he had with Commandant of the Marine Corps Michael Hagee. Hagee’s office subsequently denied the story but in a very mealy mouthed fashion – Patterico gives the most succinct run down. Fair enough. Hagee didn’t want to offend his future lord and master and Murtha is a liar of epic proportions. I could understand why Hagee would try to soft kill the story.

What I didn’t realize was that when General Hagee visited Camp Pendleton about a month after his meeting with Murtha to address the Marines on Marine core values he ordeed that K Comany, 3/1 Marines be excluded from the speech.

This act simply beggars the imagination.

Well over a third of the Marines in K/3/1 in June 2006 had not been in that unit when it was in Haditha. If Hagee truly believed the Haditha story it would seem that he would have demanded that company be on the front row when he spoke because no one would have needed the core values lecture more. It seems that Hagee succumbed to a craven act of moral cowardice and political expediency.

The alacrity with which the leaks appear in the press and the quality of the information in the leaks, for instance, the Bargewell investigation appeared in the Washington Post and AP nearly concurrent with the defense receiving their copy, together with the actions of Hagee leads one to the conclusion that in a singular instance Jack Murtha was speaking the truth and that the commandant’s office, if not the commandant, is the source of much of the information appearing in the press.)

Later in the interview Mr. Rooney is asked about the forensic evidence.  What he has to say may shock you….there is NO forensic evidence.  The bodies were examined by Iraqi’s and quickly buried.  They have refused to exhume them for forensic analysis.  So basically the NCIC believes they can take photo’s of the scene, run it through a computer, and then the computer will tell us how the people died.

Yeah.

This could work if the bodies were examined by a forensic expert, along with scene while it was still fresh.  But the scene was not examined by criminal investigators until 4 months after the incident.

The whole thing is bulls&^t.

I suspect that after the Article 32 hearings (kind of a preliminary hearing in civilian court) that most of these charges will be dropped completely.  They will probably keep the court martial going on SSgt

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Curt, here’s some more info for your “Haditha” files.

http://www.thomasmore.org/news.html?NewsID=573

Tom

I said from the git-go that this thing was BS and it’s turning out to be true.

Thanks Curt!

BTW, despite how cool they are on the show NCIS (and formerly NIS, when I had dealings w/ them) they really are pretty poorly trained and unprofessional.

Its no wonder that there was a witch hunt, if NCIS did the investigation.

It’s also no surprise that the investigation was botched.

Thanks for posting this. I have blogged about this for some time now, and it has been a frequent topic on my show as well. These brave Marines need our support and the families appreciate us for getting the message out there once more.

I will forward your post to Darryl Sharratt, Justin Sharratt’s(One of the Haditah Marines) father who I am in contact with on a regular basis. He will be pleased and moved to see that others are taking up the cause as well.

Oh and thanks for the link too.

Jay Are

Same here Jay, in fact I have a whole category on my sidebar for this incident. Appreciate you forwarding my post, have him check out all my other’s also…..

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