The scandal is front-page news in the US, with some
commentators suggesting it could prove a tipping point for
public opinion over the war in Iraq. It appears to have
caught the US administration off guard, with the White House
yesterday conceding that the first the president, George
Bush, knew of Haditha was when a reporter began asking
questions.
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Original source URL:
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=808182006
Thu 1 Jun 2006
Iraq massacre rocks US
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN CHIEF NEWS CORRESPONDENT
DAMAGING fresh details have emerged of a massacre of Iraqi civilians by US
forces in the western city of Haditha, which is rapidly becoming a domestic
scandal in the United States on the scale of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse.
As Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, expressed frustrations at the US
military's "excuses" about "mistakes" and allegations surfaced of another
incident in which US soldiers had shot dead civilians, the parents of two
soldiers who witnessed the aftermath of the Haditha killings painted a graphic
picture of the carnage.
They claimed that as many as 24 people, including children, died when a US
marine unit sought revenge after one of its members was killed by a roadside
bomb.
One young girl had been shot in the head, said Susie Briones, the mother of
21-year-old Lance Corporal Roel Ryan Briones.
"He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off
and her brain splattered on his boots."
The marines are said to have shot dead unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene
before moving into nearby houses and opening fire on the occupants.
Initial results of an investigation into the killings, which took place in
November, found that the victims died of gunshot wounds, suggesting an
unprovoked attack by the marines and casting further doubt on the soldiers'
claims that the victims were hit by the roadside bomb.
The scandal is front-page news in the US, with some commentators suggesting it
could prove a tipping point for public opinion over the war in Iraq. It appears
to have caught the US administration off guard, with the White House yesterday
conceding that the first the president, George Bush, knew of Haditha was when a
reporter began asking questions.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the scandal, Mr Bush last night said
he was troubled by the allegations. "If in fact laws were broken, there will be
punishment," he said.
The first report of the incident was published in March and two investigations
are under way - one into the killings and another into a possible cover-up. The
Pentagon investigation is understood to be focusing on about a dozen enlisted
marines. The highest ranking among those under investigation is a staff
sergeant, who led the four-vehicle convoy that was hit by the bomb.
Yesterday, the parents of two marines - L-Cpl Briones and L-Cpl Andrew Wright,
20 - said their sons were severely traumatised after following orders to
photograph and then move the corpses of people their unit was suspected of
killing.
Mrs Briones said her son saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis that day. "It was
horrific. It was a terrible scene," she said.
She described what happened as a "massacre" and said the military had done
little to help her son deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.
Navy investigators confiscated L-Cpl Briones's camera, his mother said.
L-Cpl Wright's parents, Patty and Frederick Wright, of Novato, California, said
their son had turned over all his information to the navy.
The marine corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing
and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the marines reported had been
killed.
Haditha is in Anbar province, a mainly desert region that stretches from west of
Baghdad to the Jordanian and Syrian borders. Its inhabitants are overwhelmingly
Sunni Arabs and bitter critics of the post-Saddam order in Iraq, in which the
Sunni Arabs lost dominance to the Shiites and Kurds. It has been the most
dangerous part of Iraq for US forces since their arrival in 2003.
US forces are also facing a fresh accusation from Iraqi officers that their
troops killed unarmed civilians in the town of Samarra this month. Iraqi army
and police officers and several people claiming to be witnesses and relatives of
the dead said US soldiers killed two women, aged 60 and 20, and a mentally
handicapped man in their home on 4 May after insurgents fired on the troops.
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