The Haditha massacre incident occurred on November 19, 2005. Since then the truth has been slowly fighting its way to the surface.

The horrifying aspect of this reluctantly emerging truth is that it looks very much like had it not been for Time nudging the military by turning over documentary evidence that – much like the Abu Ghraib photos – the military could not ignore and was forced to investigate, the truth might never have come to light. (Forced to investigate, as opposed to “investigate”; when the Abu Ghraib photos came out, it turned out that the military had had a slow-cooking “investigation” on the back burner for a good long time)

(1) That Was Then
From the Time story of March 19 that blew the lid off the events at Haditha:

…the military stood by its initial contention—that the Iraqis had been killed by an insurgent bomb—until January when Time gave a copy of the video and witnesses’ testimony to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. After reviewing the evidence, Johnson passed it on to the military command, suggesting that the events of Haditha be given “a full and formal investigation.” In February an infantry colonel went to Haditha for a weeklong probe in which he interviewed Marines, survivors and doctors at the morgue, according to military officials close to the investigation. The probe concluded that the civilians were in fact killed by Marines and not by an insurgent’s bomb… The probe found, however, that the deaths were the result of “collateral damage” rather than malicious intent by the Marines, investigators say.

So all the horrors of war have not caused our military commanders to lose their dewy-eyed innocence? It never occurred to them for a minute to ask: if the deaths resulted from collateral damage for which the marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines were not responsible, why would they make up an entirely fictitious version of the deaths, and try to ascribe them to an insurgent bomb?

Interestingly, in March when Time published this story, the military was also siding with the Kilo Company marines in their official statements, even though the marines were known to have lied, and even though the matter had just been “handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) which will conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether the troops broke the laws of war by deliberately targeting civilians.”

Lieut. Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, told Time the involvement of the NCIS does not mean that a crime occurred. And she says the fault for the civilian deaths lies squarely with the insurgents, who “placed noncombatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves.”

From where I’m sitting it looks very much like she said: “We’re conducting this NCIS investigation because we have to, okay? But we don’t believe the charges for a minute.” This is elevating the presumption of innocence to a whole new level.

So what if you don’t have truth on your side? Having the military in your corner, credulously believing you to the hilt even after you are known to have lied, can be almost as good. This is a good time to remind ourselves of our glorious military leader Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns” doctrine. Who knows how many other Iraq war incidents there are where things that should have come to light died a natural death, aided and abetted by “investigations”, because there was nobody to hand over photographs or videotape, and no newspaper or magazine splashed the story all over the American consciousness?

(Incidental aside: Dear Lt. Col. Martin-Hing, does the Bush military not believe in the Bush administration doctrine of not commenting on ongoing investigations?)

(2) This Is Now
NYT:

A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Now here’s what I find rather interesting:

The first official report from the military, issued on Nov. 20, said that “a U.S. marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb” and that “immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire.”

Military investigators have since uncovered a far different set of facts from what was first reported, partly aided by marines who are cooperating with the inquiry and partly guided by reports filed by a separate unit that arrived to gather intelligence and document the attack; those reports contradicted the original version of the marines, Pentagon officials said.

There’s also this from MSNBC:

Military officials say Marine Corp photos taken immediately after the incident show many of the victims were shot at close range, in the head and chest, execution-style. One photo shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead, said the officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because the investigation hasn’t been completed.

So the marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines cooked up a fictitious account of how the Iraqi deaths resulted from a roadside bomb. When that wouldn’t hold up, they changed their story to another fictitious account of collateral damage as the Iraqi civilians were caught in crossfire as the marines battled with insurgents. And the military already had on record the reports of a separate unit that was sent expressly on a fact-finding mission (unless the phrase “to gather intelligence and document the attack” means something else in Rumsfeld-military double-speak). They already had on record these Marine Corps photos taken immediately after the incident. Yet the investigation conducted in February concluded that the Iraqi civilians had been killed by crossfire? It wasn’t till the NCIS investigation was launched in March that the truth began to emerge? (This Haditha truth is starting to look like a really shy and retiring truth. But don’t be fooled by that act. It was clad in just a flimsy set of veils.)

The question cries out to be asked, so let’s go ahead and ask it: What kind of investigation exactly did the unnamed infantry colonel conduct in February, if he didn’t even penetrate that flimsy second veil the truth was wearing, the “collateral damage” veil? (I, for one, would very much like to know who this infantry colonel is, and what is or isn’t happening to him as a result of his investigation. There is, of course, a cover-up investigation report that is due soon.)

One might also ask what prodded the military to launch the NCIS investigation in March. Time’s March article says that the investigation was launched “last week”. On the whole, my priors being what they are, I am inclined to believe that the military hoped their February investigation had successfully whitewashed the whole incident, and laid it to rest. But then Time came along again, and made it clear – via confirm-or-deny and any-comments invitations – that they were about to make a second contribution to irrevocably demoralizing our troops in Iraq, and compromising national security, to boot. At that point, the military went “Yikes!” and “Shoot!” and set about launching the NCIS investigation.

(For the record, the official version is:

Officials with Multi-National Corps-Iraq launched an investigation Feb. 14 after Time brought the allegations to their attention. Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of MNC-I, directed further review March 9 after he was presented with initial findings of the investigation.

Chiarelli then handed the findings to Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, the new military commander for western Iraq.

At some point after March 9 and before the Time story came out on March 19, Zilmer turned it over to NCIS.

It’s possible this chain of events had nothing to do with Time’s forthcoming story. It’s also possible this chain of events is the official window dressing for my cynical version above.)

The wheels of military justice appear to be greased with good intentions. The only problem is that the good intentions have to be externally supplied. And most of the time most of the media is too busy with something else. But why unnecessarily end this segment with the word “brown-nosing”?

(3) Better Late Than Never
NYT:

In an unusual sign of high-level concern, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flew from Washington to Iraq on Thursday to give a series of speeches to his forces re-emphasizing compliance with international laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and the American military’s own rules of engagement.

Next time, can we please give them this lecture before we send them to war?

(4) The Numbers Game
24: the number of Iraqi civilians who were butchered by the marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines as they went on a 3 to 5 hour rampage which included breaking into at least 2 houses and shooting women and children cowering in their nightclothes.
7 and 3: the number of women and children that were among the 15 Iraqi civilians that the Marine Corps initially claimed had been killed in the “roadside bomb” and “crossfire” versions of the official story.
NYT link
0: A senior Defense Department official’s estimate of how many of the 24 dead Iraqis were killed by the roadside bomb.

(5) Their Official Spokesmen Never Learn, Do They?
On May 17, Rep. John Murtha went public with the details that are now starting to emerge semi-officially:

“It’s much worse than was reported in Time magazine,” Murtha, a Democrat, former Marine colonel and Vietnam war veteran, told reporters on Capitol Hill.

“There was no firefight. There was no [bomb] that killed those innocent people,” Murtha explained…

Mincing no words, Murtha said marines had “killed innocent civilians in cold blood”.

Here’s how an official spokesman responded:

“I do not know where Rep. Murtha is obtaining is information,” said Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Central Command in Tampa, Fla.

(Let it be noted that the statement is factually correct. How come someone with such a flair for conveying an untruth without actually telling a lie is not a senior member of the White House communications staff?)

(6) Republican Chairman of House Armed Services Committee
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R- Calif:

“If there were problems in the chain of command, if there was a cover-up, if anything wasn’t reported, let the chips fall where they may, but don’t presume anything,” Hunter said Friday. “Those reports aren’t finished yet, but the reports and the investigations are being pursued with great integrity.”

I’m so glad he put it in the present continuous. He could so easily have tried to say “have been pursued”. There is integrity in Congress, after all, huh?