An ear witness to the sound of battle in Haditha

Chicago Tribune:

Marine Capt. James Kimber, now relieved of his command, remembers what happened near Haditha in western Iraq on Nov. 19.

That's not because Kimber was in the town where his Marine colleagues are alleged to have shot and killed 24 Iraqi civilians after a roadside bomb attack that killed one Marine. In fact, he said, "Not a soul from my company was in Haditha on Nov. 19."

But that day, at about the same time, Iraqi insurgents attacked all three Marine companies patrolling in the Haditha area--one of them commanded by Kimber. He said he could hear over his radio the shots being fired during a running gun battle in Haditha. "They weren't just Marine weapons. You can tell from the sound," he said.

Kimber's disciplinary case began after he returned to the U.S. and after the Marine Corps launched an investigation into the Haditha shootings following a Time magazine report on civilian deaths there. A week after his unit arrived home at this sprawling base near San Diego, Kimber and two other officers were relieved of their commands in April.

But Kimber, 33, a 10-year veteran, said in an interview with the Tribune: "None of my Marines have been queried in an investigation. I haven't been queried."

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Nov. 19 unfolded like many other days in Iraq, Kimber said, with reports of violence. A rocket-propelled grenade was launched toward the compound of Kimber's unit, in a school in central Haqlaniyah, a few miles south of Haditha. Other nearby units also were taking mortar and small-arms fire.

On the radio, Kimber said, he heard the report from Haditha of the blast from a roadside improvised explosive device, or IED, and the death of one Marine there. He also could hear an unfolding gun battle.

In the battalion briefing afterward, he said, the events of the day in Haditha were reported as an IED ambush, an account that seemed to fit with what he had overheard on the radio.

Most puzzling, Kimber and a Marine colonel said, was the fact that neither of them heard about shootings at Haditha through the Marine rumor mill or in complaints from the Iraqis with whom they had frequent interaction.

"Marines talk," Kimber said. "I'm surprised it didn't get out that way. I'm just hoping that Marines didn't do this."

The Marine colonel, who asked not to be identified, also expressed surprise that he had not heard of questions from other Marines about what happened at Haditha.

"My gunnery sergeant and I called each other after we heard about this and we asked each other, `Why didn't we know about this?'" said the colonel, who conducted operations throughout Anbar province. "I was angry that I didn't know about it."

Kimber also said issues about Haditha did not come up during weekly battalion meetings at the Haditha dam, where officers met to discuss progress, problems and plans.

Kimber said his name has been unfairly linked to the Haditha allegations because the Marine Corps removed him from command along with the two officers who were relieved as part of the Haditha investigation.

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There is much more including training as well as response to IED attacks. Kimber apparently is a victim of a Sky News report that featured some of his men. This has the potential to be a major mistake by the US military. If people are going to be disiplined for what their subordinates said to some reporter, no one will be permitted to talk to reporters and the US will never get its side of the story out. It is already clear that we are barely able to get it out at all, while the enemy plays the media like a drum.