OMEN
07-08-2006, 09:23 PM
BAGHDAD: Commanders can expect a "day of pain" once the top US general in Iraq reviews a report that finds they failed to act on complaints their troops killed 24 civilians at Haditha, a US military official said on Saturday.
The report into whether officers failed to investigate or even covered up for Marines accused by Iraqis of killing men, women and children in cold blood was passed to General George Casey on Friday, the military said in a brief statement.
Disciplinary action now seems likely, officials said, over failures by 2nd Marine Division officers in their command duty.
"The Marines will go through their day of pain," said a military official in Baghdad familiar with recommendations made by ground forces commander, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli.
Its findings should be made public soon, possibly in a week, as US generals and diplomats strive to assure a sceptical Iraqi public – and their new government – that soldiers are being held accountable for a string of suspected abuses.
Those include a rape-murder case that has outraged the nation and fuelled calls for the 127,000 Americans to go home.
It is for Casey to decide what disciplinary action to take over Haditha. The report prepared by Major General Eldon Bargewell identified failings in areas "from reporting, to training to command environment", the military official said.
He made clear that action is likely, but stressed that the report is entirely separate from the criminal murder probe under way into troops accused by Iraqis of shooting the 24 people on Nov. 19 after a bomb killed a Marine.
The key complaint against senior officers is a failure to question inconsistencies in their troops' accounts of the day.
Haditha is in violent Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni minority's insurgency in the west where three US soldiers attached to a Marine unit were killed in action on Saturday.
Broadening efforts to quell the revolt, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari took part in talks in Tehran with other regional governments seeking co-operation to calm the violence.
Iraqi and US leaders have accused Sunni Arab neighbours and Shi'ite Iran of aiding militants in Iraq. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the meeting "terrorists" must be kept out of Iraq to deny US troops an excuse to stay.
Not only Sunni rebels but also nominally pro-government Shi'ite militias threaten the peace. In a new sign Iraqi and US forces are clamping down, troops surrounded a Baghdad mosque. Police said they were hunting Shi'ite militants inside.
The Marines said in a statement the day after the killings in Haditha last year that 15 of the civilian dead were killed by the same roadside bomb which killed the Marine during a patrol.
At the heart of the Bargewell report is how that version was left uncorrected even after medical reports showed all the dead had gunshot wounds and survivors told Time magazine Marines went from house to house in a rage. Among the dead was a girl aged 3.
Time said that when confronted in January with a video of the dead in the city morgue, a Marine spokesman dismissed the allegations by Iraqis as al Qaeda propaganda, even though a Marine officer had also paid out nearly $US40,000 ($NZ67,000) in compensation.
After Time published its story in March, three Marine field officers from the regiment involved, a lieutenant colonel and two captains, were relieved of their commands.
Chiarelli, appointed in January, has demanded subordinate commanders tighten procedures to limit injuries to civilians that have turned many Iraqis against the army that takes credit for freeing them from Saddam Hussein.
Officials say killings of civilians by US troops on convoy and checkpoint duty have dropped to about one a week now from an average of one a day last year as a result of new measures.
As Washington seeks a pro-American Iraq, Chiarelli has said that such deaths at US hands risk making new enemies.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose Shi'ite Islamic bloc has swept to power on the strength of US-installed majority rule, complained this week that a failure to hold soldiers accountable had "emboldened" them to commit crimes such as the alleged rape and murder of a teenager at Mahmudiya in March.
Stung by the outcry at the killing of Abeer Qasim Hamza, her parents and sister, Maliki wants a review of troops' immunity from Iraqi justice. Former private Steven Green was charged with rape and murder. Serving soldiers are also under investigation.
http://stuff.co.nz/inl/images/masthead/reuters.gif
The report into whether officers failed to investigate or even covered up for Marines accused by Iraqis of killing men, women and children in cold blood was passed to General George Casey on Friday, the military said in a brief statement.
Disciplinary action now seems likely, officials said, over failures by 2nd Marine Division officers in their command duty.
"The Marines will go through their day of pain," said a military official in Baghdad familiar with recommendations made by ground forces commander, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli.
Its findings should be made public soon, possibly in a week, as US generals and diplomats strive to assure a sceptical Iraqi public – and their new government – that soldiers are being held accountable for a string of suspected abuses.
Those include a rape-murder case that has outraged the nation and fuelled calls for the 127,000 Americans to go home.
It is for Casey to decide what disciplinary action to take over Haditha. The report prepared by Major General Eldon Bargewell identified failings in areas "from reporting, to training to command environment", the military official said.
He made clear that action is likely, but stressed that the report is entirely separate from the criminal murder probe under way into troops accused by Iraqis of shooting the 24 people on Nov. 19 after a bomb killed a Marine.
The key complaint against senior officers is a failure to question inconsistencies in their troops' accounts of the day.
Haditha is in violent Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni minority's insurgency in the west where three US soldiers attached to a Marine unit were killed in action on Saturday.
Broadening efforts to quell the revolt, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari took part in talks in Tehran with other regional governments seeking co-operation to calm the violence.
Iraqi and US leaders have accused Sunni Arab neighbours and Shi'ite Iran of aiding militants in Iraq. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the meeting "terrorists" must be kept out of Iraq to deny US troops an excuse to stay.
Not only Sunni rebels but also nominally pro-government Shi'ite militias threaten the peace. In a new sign Iraqi and US forces are clamping down, troops surrounded a Baghdad mosque. Police said they were hunting Shi'ite militants inside.
The Marines said in a statement the day after the killings in Haditha last year that 15 of the civilian dead were killed by the same roadside bomb which killed the Marine during a patrol.
At the heart of the Bargewell report is how that version was left uncorrected even after medical reports showed all the dead had gunshot wounds and survivors told Time magazine Marines went from house to house in a rage. Among the dead was a girl aged 3.
Time said that when confronted in January with a video of the dead in the city morgue, a Marine spokesman dismissed the allegations by Iraqis as al Qaeda propaganda, even though a Marine officer had also paid out nearly $US40,000 ($NZ67,000) in compensation.
After Time published its story in March, three Marine field officers from the regiment involved, a lieutenant colonel and two captains, were relieved of their commands.
Chiarelli, appointed in January, has demanded subordinate commanders tighten procedures to limit injuries to civilians that have turned many Iraqis against the army that takes credit for freeing them from Saddam Hussein.
Officials say killings of civilians by US troops on convoy and checkpoint duty have dropped to about one a week now from an average of one a day last year as a result of new measures.
As Washington seeks a pro-American Iraq, Chiarelli has said that such deaths at US hands risk making new enemies.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose Shi'ite Islamic bloc has swept to power on the strength of US-installed majority rule, complained this week that a failure to hold soldiers accountable had "emboldened" them to commit crimes such as the alleged rape and murder of a teenager at Mahmudiya in March.
Stung by the outcry at the killing of Abeer Qasim Hamza, her parents and sister, Maliki wants a review of troops' immunity from Iraqi justice. Former private Steven Green was charged with rape and murder. Serving soldiers are also under investigation.
http://stuff.co.nz/inl/images/masthead/reuters.gif