New York Times | July 22, 2007

From left, Mark O’Reilly, Patrick Barnes and Thomas Bolinder of the Military Combat Defense Fund support servicemen accused of crimes. (Erik Jacobs for The New York Times)

Web Sites Rally Support for G.I.’s in Legal Trouble

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

Conservative Christians and military veterans are part an emerging group of Americans who say they are upset by the recent prosecutions of soldiers and marines based in Iraq on war crimes charges, and are coming to their defense with words, Web sites and money.

In the past year, more than a dozen Web sites have been developed to solicit donations to hire private lawyers for service members who have been charged with violent crimes for actions taken in the confusion of combat or counterinsurgency operations. They have raised more than $600,000, organizers say, from grandparents, business executives and college students, among others. The average donation is for $25 to $50.

Virtually all donations come with handwritten or e-mail messages full of encouragement for the troops in Iraq and laced with frustration at the government and the news media.

“I wonder if you are supposed to check out each enemy to see if they have a gun or wait for them to shoot first,” wrote a 98-year-old woman from Grand Junction, Colo., who recently sent $25 to the Military Combat Defense Fund, a group outside Boston that has provided more than $85,000 to smaller funds set up for individual marines accused of murder and other crimes in Haditha and Hamdaniya, Iraq. “Bible says that the country will always be fighting. We have been praying for all you boys and girls.”

In interviews, organizers and contributors said they believed that many of the prosecutions were based on feeble evidence and gauzy recollections of Iraqis sympathetic to the insurgency and hostile to the American military mission in Iraq.

They point to the case against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, who was charged with killing three unarmed Iraqi men at point-blank range in Haditha in 2005. This month, a Marine lawyer investigating the charges recommended dismissing them, for lack of evidence, and warned that pressing flimsy cases against combat troops “sets a dangerous precedent” that eroded public support for the war and could cause infantrymen to hesitate when fighting a determined enemy.

There is no denying that some American troops have committed violent crimes against Iraqi civilians during more than four years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military prosecutors have won convictions against soldiers and marines in more than 200 cases of violent crimes, including murder, rape and assault, military records show. One the most heinous episodes occurred last year, when a group of soldiers from Company B of the First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 101st Airborne Division raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed her and her family, Army prosecutors said.

Two soldiers, Specialist James P. Barker and Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, pleaded guilty to rape and murder; Specialist Barker was sentenced to 90 years in prison and Sergeant Cortez was sentenced to 100 years. A third soldier pleaded guilty to being an accessory. Federal prosecutors announced this month that they would seek the death penalty against the former soldier described as the ringleader, Steven D. Green. But in more than a dozen interviews, organizers and contributors said they were motivated by anger at the Bush administration and the military for prosecuting combat troops and commanders just for doing their jobs, they say, in life or death circumstances, as they were trained.

“The insurgency has found a new weapon, besides the bomb, and that’s to accuse these young men of wrongdoing, because we throw the book at them,” said Maralee Jones, 45, a mortgage loan officer in Utah who taught herself how to build a Web site, www.marinedefensefund.com, to raise money to help several accused marines pay for civilian lawyers, who are generally regarded as more experienced and aggressive than military defense lawyers.

“We all feel like the big brass have eaten their young here,” said Ms. Jones, whose son is serving with the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, the same unit as the marines accused in the Hamdaniya case. “You just can’t put people under a microscope when the lines of combat are so blurred.”

So far the fund has raised $78,000, she said.

Outside Boston, a group of Vietnam War veterans — retired police officials, postal workers, lawyers and others — established the Military Combat Defense Fund and recently surpassed $152,000 in donations to their Web site, said Patrick Barnes, a former radio reporter who is the group’s treasurer.

Religious conviction plays a role in much of the giving, Mr. Barnes said.

“They believe the military’s work is God’s work,” he said. “That’s what’s been indicated in the letters.”

The movement to defend accused marines and soldiers generally does not embrace cases that appear to be premeditated atrocities. The board of directors for at least one large fund recently voted to stop contributing to marines who pleaded guilty to violent crimes. Two widely discussed cases are the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha in 2005, which led to murder charges against three low-ranking marines and dereliction of duty charges against four officers, and the abduction and killing of an Iraqi in Hamdaniya last year, for which the Marine Corps has charged seven marines and a Navy corpsman.

On Wednesday, a military jury convicted Cpl. Trent D. Thomas of kidnapping and conspiracy to murder in the Hamdaniya case. The jury’s sentence, announced Friday, called for a demotion and a bad-conduct discharge but no prison time. Four other marines and the corpsman have pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for reduced sentences.

Terry Pennington, a former Air Force technician whose son, Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, was among the Hamdaniya marines who pleaded guilty, said in an interview: “Many of these people see this country as not having the guts anymore to fight a war. They’re outraged really all the way up to the White House.”

Mr. Pennington said the Web site for his son, www.defendrob.com, has collected about 1,000 contributions, many for $5 and $10. The wife of Corporal Thomas has raised $14,000, according to her Web site.

Much of the strongest criticism from many defense funds is directed toward mainstream news organizations, which they say portray the concerns of Iraqis more sympathetically than the plight of American troops.

“From the magazines and newspapers that I read, it seems that many of them are too condemning of our own guys,” said Jacqueline Batcha, 44, of Atlantis, Fla., who sent $100 to the Web site for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, who is charged with 13 counts of murder in the Haditha case.

Other parents of active-duty marines and soldiers are doing whatever they can to publicly support troops facing charges.

In Seattle, Don Dinsmore, the father of a marine infantry officer currently on duty in Falluja, led a group of motorcycle riders on a West Coast road trip to the gates of Camp Pendleton, Calif., on June 28, where hearings and trials in the Haditha and Hamdaniya cases are being held. Along the way the group collected enough cash donations to fill 10 bank-deposit bags, Mr. Dinsmore said.

Not all marines facing criminal charges receive the same amount of attention, or cash donations.

Though Sergeant Wuterich’s defense fund has received only a few thousand dollars, the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian firm representing his battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, who is charged with dereliction of duty, has collected about $300,000, said one of Colonel Chessani’s lawyers, Brian J. Rooney.

One difference, it seems, is Michael Savage, a popular conservative talk-radio host who has discussed Colonel Chessani’s case on his syndicated program.

Mr. Rooney’s law center received $50,000 in contributions in just three days this month, after Mr. Rooney’s latest interview with Mr. Savage.

“He’s all over this case,” Mr. Rooney said of Mr. Savage. “He really is a big supporter of us and the Marines.”