"Scan Eagle" video reveals Haditha on day of "massacre"

CNN:

Flying over Haditha, Iraq, on November 19, 2005, a small, unmanned spy plane called "Scan Eagle" recorded scenes of heavy fighting -- bombings and strafings from the air, and ground work by U.S. Marines seeking insurgents who earlier in the day had set off a roadside bomb that killed one of their members.

Shortly after the bomb attack, Marines hunting the attackers killed 24 Iraqi civilians, leading to murder charges against four Marines a year later.

Charges against two of those Marines have been dropped -- one in exchange for his testimony and the other because a hearing officer decided that he followed rules of engagement.

The Scan Eagle arrived about 30 minutes after the initial bomb attack on the Marines and does not show the the civilians being killed. Watch video from the drone and a report about it »

It does show a house from which the military suspected insurgents triggered the bomb -- and the wrecked vehicle it left 1,000 yards (about 900 meters) away.

CNN has learned that the Scan Eagle's video -- obtained exclusively by the network -- will be introduced as evidence by lawyers for Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who is facing 17 murder counts and charges of making a false official statement and trying to get another Marine to make a false statement.

The video appears to show that, throughout that day, Marines engaged in fierce firefights and called in air strikes to level buildings -- often with no definitive idea of who was inside.

That could buttress defense arguments that Marines clearing buildings on the ground with guns and grenades were just following rules of engagement.

"The defense can say, 'Hey, look, you had to do this later in the day, what's the difference between what happened later in the day and what our guys did earlier in the day?' " asked retired Marine Lt. Col. Gary Solis, a former prosecutor and military judge who teaches law at Georgetown University and West Point.

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The video shows a white sedan and the bodies of five Iraqi men who Marines said refused to lie down and were shot while running away. Villagers countered that the men were students in a taxi, but the Marines said their actions were consistent with insurgents about to detonate a car bomb.

"Every person you see on the street, every item, everything you see in the street, may be the means of your death," Solis said.

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This is an important piece of evidence that has been rumored for weeks. Where it really supports the defense is by providing evidence that the Marines were in the middle of a combat operation.

When you are in the middle of a combat operation with an enemy that camouflages himself as a civilian, you do not always have the time to distinguish non combatants from the enemy that is trying to kill you.

The primary reason the non combatants were killed at Haditha was the enemy's violations of the Geneva Conventions requirement of wearing an identifying uniform and the enemy's war crime of using human shields. If CNN and the rest of the media can be made to comprehend that reality it will be the most important lesson from these hearings.