Baghdad, Iraq – The U.S. military is bracing for a major scandal over the alleged slaying of Iraqi civilians by Marines in Hadithah – charges so serious they could threaten President Bush’s effort to rally support at home for an increasingly unpopular war.
And while the case has attracted little attention so far in Iraq, it still could inflame hostility to the U.S. presence just as Iraq’s new government is getting established and complicate efforts by moderate Sunni Arab leaders to reach out to their community – the bedrock of the insurgency.
U.S. lawmakers have been told the criminal investigation will be finished in about 30 days. But a Pentagon official said investigators believe Marines committed unprovoked murder in the deaths of about two dozen people at Hadithah in November.
With a political storm brewing, the top U.S. Marine, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, is headed to Iraq to personally deliver the message that troops should use deadly force “only when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful.”
Hadithah is not the only case pending: On Wednesday, the military announced an investigation into allegations that Marines killed a civilian April 26 near Fallujah.
The statement gave no further details except that “several service members” had been sent back to the United States “pending the results of the criminal investigation.”
In July, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samir al- Sumaidaie, accused the Marines of killing his 21-year-old cousin in cold blood during a search of his family’s home in Hadithah, a city of about 90,000 people along the Euphrates River 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.
The military ordered a criminal investigation, but the results have not been announced.
Together, the cases present the most serious challenge to U.S. handling of the Iraq war since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, which Bush cited Thursday as “the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq.”
“What happened at Hadithah appears to be outright murder,” said Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch. “It has the potential to blow up in the U.S. military’s face.”
He said that “the Hadithah massacre will go down as Iraq’s My Lai,” a reference to the Vietnam War incident in which American soldiers slaughtered up to 500 civilians in 1968.
The Hadithah case involves both the alleged killing of civilians and a purported coverup of the events that unfolded Nov. 19.
That day, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso was killed by a roadside bomb in Hadithah, a Sunni Arab city considered among the most hostile areas of Iraq.
After the blast, insurgents attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol with small-arms fire, triggering a gun battle that left eight insurgents and 15 Iraqi civilians dead, the Marines said in a statement issued the following day.
That version stood for four months until a videotape surfaced. It was shot by an Iraqi journalism student and obtained by Time magazine and then by Arab television stations. The tape showed the bodies of women and children, some in their nightclothes.
Although the tape did not prove Marines were responsible, the military began an investigation. Residents came forward with claims that Marines entered two homes and killed up to 16 people, including a 3-year-old girl and a 76-year-old man – more than four hours after the roadside bombing.
It isn’t clear whether questions have been raised about the eight slain people that the Marines described as insurgents.
In March, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said about a dozen Marines were under investigation for possible war crimes in the incident.
Three officers from the unit involved have been relieved of their posts.
Such incidents have reinforced the perception among many Iraqis who believe American troops are trigger-happy – a characterization U.S. officers strongly dispute.
“America in the view of many Iraqis has no credibility. We do not believe what they say is correct,” said Sheik Sattar al-Aasaf, a tribal leader in Anbar province, which includes Hadithah.
“U.S. troops are very well- trained, and when they shoot, it isn’t random but due to an order to kill Iraqis.
“People say they are the killers.”
