1115.org

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich was the leader of 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion on that fateful day at Haditha which has already led to so much shame for the Marine Corps. He is reported to be a key participant in the murderous rampage that is alleged to have occurred at Haditha. On June 11, WaPo carried a long story putting forward his version of events, as related by his attorney, Neal A. Puckett. The short version was that “his unit did not intentionally target any civilians, followed military rules of engagement and never tried to cover up the shootings”.

The most memorable quote from Puckett was:

“It will forever be (Wuterich’s) position that everything they did that day was following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of Marines”.

To be successful, criminal lawyers need to have a deft touch with language. Ironic that at their coming out party in this case, Puckett-Wuterich would offer up this quote, with its unfortunate suggestion of “this is the story we’ve decided to stick to”.

But I digress. This story was not just carried prominently by Wapo, it also received wide attention in the mainstream media. Even though we have followed Haditha developments pretty closely at 1115, we chose to entirely ignore Puckett-Wuterich’s self-serving version of events. It didn’t seem particularly surprising that one of the main “accused” would claim to be innocent. And the story that his lawyer put out on his behalf clearly lacked credibility. So we chose to ignore it.

Or, to be precise, the Puckett-Wuterich version clearly lacked credibility if you trusted the Marine Corps (as opposed to trusting the unsupported words of those whom the Marine Corps believed, with probable cause, to be cold-blooded murderers and war criminals). It lacked credibility if you believed in the investigative prowess of the NCIS. The NCIS had conducted an extensive investigation at that point for more than two months. Although the investigation was still incomplete, the Marine Corps had taken the unprecedented step of briefing key figures on Capitol Hill about the murder charges that were expected to follow.

At that point in the investigation, the key suspects had obviously been interviewed extensively by investigators, and their stories subjected to careful scrutiny. If the Marine Corps went to Capitol Hill to warn that several marines from Kilo Company were likely to be charged with going on a murderous rampage and killing Iraqi civilians in cold blood, obviously the evidence had proved the suspects’ story to be false, to the satisfaction of investigators.

Of course, since we entirely ignored the Puckett-Wuterich effort to muddy public perception of the case, we never said any of this at the time.

Earlier, on June 7, Reuters had run a story, written by Dan Whitcomb, which was part of the same campaign to muddy public perception. Quoting not Wuterich or his lawyer, but an anonymous source “close to one of the soldiers under investigation”, Whitcomb painted a version of events at Haditha which strained all credulity. Reuters and Whitcomb provided a forum for this clear fabrication without in any way pointing out the inconsistencies and contradictions and the sheer improbability of the claims being made on behalf of the marines of Kilo Company.

We did, at the time, run a piece that was strongly critical of Reuters and Whitcomb. But since the story did not quote Wuterich or his lawyer, and there was no indication that what Whitcomb was relating had been said to NCIS investigators, our piece did not contain any discussion of how, if you respected the Marine Corps and the NCIS and gave them your trust, you had to reject the self-serving protestations being made on behalf of the Haditha accused. Instead, our criticism of the Reuters-Whitcomb story focused on the obvious inconsistencies and contradictions of the narrative being peddled by their source.

Both the piece we ran and the story we ignored caused our resident remora to vent, with great feeling, in the comments section about the one-sidedness of our Haditha coverage. This criticism repeated, and merged seamlessly into, his ongoing rants about our deep and consuming hatred of the military and of everything originating from the Bush administration, and our insistence on cheering for those who would like to see America burn. The implication was that all of that had led us to totally disregard the fact that the Haditha accused had presented a detailed explanation of their innocence, and to paint American soldiers as contemptible murderers, all this in order to make America look bad, and to make Bush look bad, and to boost the morale of the enemies of America everywhere. (For a selection of the ongoing rants from just the last six weeks, see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.)

These comments are, of course, just one manifestation of the widely prevalent attitude on the far right that “you liberals just bloody hate America, and our brave soldiers in Iraq who are fighting for your freedom, and our President, who anyone who loves America would rally behind in this time of war”. Similar comments can be found in any number of far right blogs. Or in the comments section of many other liberal blogs, for that matter, since we are hardly the only one to be blessed by the e-Gods with a resident remora.

It is possible now to justify the stand we took (by ignoring or questioning the protestations of innocence made by or on behalf of the Hadtha accused) simply by quoting a few short paragraphs from the NYT, and without getting into a detailed and futile deconstruction of past posts and comments. So we take the opportunity to do so:

Since the military inquiries into the Haditha killings began, the accounts given by some marines involved and their lawyers have conflicted in important details with descriptions of what investigators have found, officials familiar with their findings have said.

After the roadside bomb went off, marines who survived the explosion said they believed that they were under sustained attack and that they were entitled under their rules of engagement to use lethal force as they searched surrounding houses for those who they believed were responsible for the bombing.

But investigators and townspeople have told reporters … that the marines overreacted to a fatal roadside bombing and shot the civilians, only one of whom was armed, in cold blood. The 24 Iraqis killed included five men in a taxi and 19 other civilians in several houses, which marines and their lawyers say they cleared using grenades and blind fire.

But investigators have also concluded that most of the victims in three houses died from well-aimed rifle shots, not shrapnel or random fire, according to military officials familiar with the initial findings. The houses where the killings took place show no evidence of the violent room-clearing assault described by the marines and their lawyers, the officials said.

In addition, investigators have found evidence that the men in the taxi were not fleeing the bombing scene when they were shot, as the marines have told military officials.

The conviction of senior Marine Corps commanders that a massacre had occurred in Haditha was based, of course, on indisputable forensic evidence. That’s the only scenario that would drive them to brief key legislators the way they did.

Nobody, not even on the lunatic fringe of the far right, has suggested that for senior Marine Corps commanders to hold these beliefs is evidence of hating America, or the military, or the President, or of being in sympathy with the enemies of America.

Perhaps, it was also not a reprehensible act for 1115 to assume that the beliefs held by senior Marine Corps commanders more than two months into the NCIS investigation must be based on indisputable forensic evidence? When we decided that the version of events that the senior Marine Corps commanders believed in was more credible than the version the Haditha accused were trying to put out, perhaps that was not proof of our consuming hatred for America, or for the military, or for the President? Perhaps it only demonstrated our unqualifed opposition to U.S. soldiers dishonoring their uniform and their country, by murdering frightened children and cowering women and bewildered invalids in wheelchairs?