|
An editorial by William T. Russell
October 26,
2011 –
Last week, President Obama announced his decision to withdraw all US
troops from Iraq by year’s end. Some hail it as the end of a war that
should never have occurred. Others see it as a great strategic
blunder, committed for political expediency, which will lead to yet
another war.
While the decision to withdraw from Iraq is
clearly a political one, it is just one of the many political
decisions which affect wars and their outcomes. One unfortunate
reality is that it is the troops who get caught in the political
crossfire. While the President’s decision will bring one chapter of
the war to a close, there is another chapter which remains
unfinished.
While the last of his brother and sisters-in-arms
will leave Iraq before December 31st, one Marine will be
held a political hostage to the Iraq War until after the New Year.
His name is Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich. SSgt Wuterich is the
remaining hostage of a great wrong which occurred at the height of the
war in Iraq and the political arguments over it. And it is long past
the time for this wrong to be made right and this chapter ended.
In early 2006, a very obvious enemy propaganda
ploy hit the press, falsely accusing US Marines of the murder of 24
Iraqi civilians at a town called Haditha in November 2005. The story
was seized upon by the press, anti-war groups, and some of the most
powerful members of Congress, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and
the late John Murtha. Six months before the investigation into the
incident was completed and any charges were filed, John Murtha took to
the airwaves and publicly accused the Marines of “cold-blooded
murder.” In doing so, he effectively put the United States Congress
“Stamp of Approval” on enemy propaganda, inspired the anti-war
advocates, undermined support for the troops at home, and solidified
the “truth” of the enemy’s side of the story on the Arab street.
It was politically impossible for the Department
of Defense to dismiss the charges created by the heavily doctored
video tapes (which the insurgents produced after moving the bodies and
removing all evidence of insurgent activities) and the contradictory
testimonies of the “eye witnesses” given to the Naval Criminal
Investigation Service six months after the incident, especially after
Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House and Murtha the Chairman of
the House Appropriations Sub Committee for Defense.
However, the truth has a habit of coming out. As
2007 progressed into to 2008, seven of the eight Marines who were
charged were not only found to be “not guilty” but they were fully
exonerated. In the case of Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt, who
happens to be from Murtha’s own district, he was found to have
conducted himself to highest standards of the Marine Corps for a
Marine in combat.
For some reason, however, SSgt Wuterich did not
go to trial before the 2008 election, even though it was nearly two
years after he was charged. In fact, he is not scheduled to go to
trial until January 4, 2012, more than five years after the initial
charges were levied against him and more than six years after the
combat action for which all of his squad mates have now been
commended.
As the old saying goes: justice delayed is
justice denied. In SSgt Wuterich’s case, he has been denied the
privilege of leading other Marines and eligibility for promotion for
over five years because of the pending charges. He has spent the last
five years of his life and career in a legal purgatory, largely
because of the political vulnerability his exoneration would have
caused for his most vocal accuser, Congressman John Murtha. But
Murtha is gone now, and his former Chief of Staff, John Hugya has
admitted that the continued prosecution of SSgt Wuterich is wrong,
telling the Somerset, Pennsylvania Daily American on October 20th
that SSgt Wuterich “should be exonerated and pardoned if
convicted.”
It is time for the President to order the
Secretary of Defense to drop the charges against SSgt Wuterich and
restore him to his rightful place as a combat leader with any
back-dated promotions and pay raises he would have had, if not for the
pending charges. It is time for Congressman Mark Critz to introduce a
Congressional Resolution honoring the Haditha Marines for their
bravery in combat and right the wrong inflicted on them by his
predecessor.
________________________________________________________
William T. Russell
26 October 2011
William T Russell is a former Republican Congressional Candidate in
the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. He is an
internationally published columnist and has been a featured guest on a
number of national television and radio news shows.
He is a retired
Lieutenant Colonel from the US Army and has served in Desert Storm,
the Iraq War, and the Balkans. He and his wife, Kasia, were both in
the Pentagon on 9/11.
|