Haditha hearing opens with testimony of lieutenant

Washington Post:

The first officer to see the bodies of two dozen civilians killed in a 2005 Marine assault in Haditha, Iraq, testified Tuesday that he saw nothing at the scene that he believed required further investigation.

Lt. William T. Kallop said that after a roadside bomb killed one Marine and injured two others, he ordered Marines in the unit to clear two nearby houses. Later, Kallop entered one of the houses and saw two wounded children pretending to be dead, along with "a family that had been killed."

"The only thing I thought was 'Hey, where are the bad guys? Why aren't there any insurgents here?' " Kallop testified. "I thought that those Marines, after what they'd told me, I thought they'd been operating the best they could in an uncertain environment."

Kallop's testimony came during the first criminal hearing arising from the Haditha case, which has highlighted questions about the way U.S. troops operate in Iraq's urban battlefield. Kallop testified at an Article 32 hearing -- the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation -- for Capt. Randy W. Stone, a military lawyer in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

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Stone, 34, is one of four Marine officers charged with ignoring the civilian deaths, while three enlisted Marines are charged with murder. If found guilty, Stone could be sentenced to three years in prison for failing to investigate the incident and dereliction.

Though investigators found that Marines up the chain of command did not try to cover up the deaths, documents obtained by The Washington Post show that Marine officers believed an inquiry was not warranted. The military began investigating two months later, after a Time magazine reporter asked about the killings.

Stone's civilian attorney, Charles Gittins, said his client's superiors knew of the civilian deaths and told Stone not to investigate.

"He didn't see it," Gittins said of Stone. "His battalion commander didn't see it. The regiment commander didn't see it. The staff judge advocate division commander didn't see it. I don't know how you push that down the chain of command to the least experienced guy and say he should have been the one to say something was wrong."

Kallop has been granted immunity from prosecution. He described Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, who is charged with murder, as "a good Marine."

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Military responsibility can be an unfair thing sometimes and this may be one of them. The proximate cause of the civilian deaths at Haditha was the enemy's violation of the Geneva Conventions requirements of wearing an identifying uniform and its prohibitions against using human shields. That is what caused the Marines to take action that resulted in civilian casualties and the Marines and the justice system must take that into account. Otherwise, these Marines will not get justice.