New York Times / April 22, 2007

Military Cites 'Negligence' in Aftermath of Iraq Killings

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

A military investigation has found that the U.S. Marine Corps's chain of command engaged in "willful negligence" in failing to investigate an attack by marines who killed 24 unarmed people in Haditha, Iraq, lawyers involved in the case said.

The report, completed last summer but never made public, also found that a marine general and colonel in Iraq learned of the killings within hours of the incident, on Nov. 19, 2005, but failed to investigate.

The 130-page report, by Major General Eldon Bargewell of the U.S. Army, did not conclude that the officers had covered up evidence or committed a crime. But it said the marine command in Iraq was far too willing to tolerate civilian casualties and dismiss Iraqi claims of abuse by marines as insurgent propaganda, said lawyers who have read it.

"All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," Bargewell wrote in his report, according to two people who have read it. "Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the marines need to get the job done no matter what it takes."

The report focused only on senior commanders' handling of the aftermath of the attack in Haditha, in which several marines killed the Iraqis, who included many women and children, in the hours after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, killing one marine. Bargewell's report, completed at the request of Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the day-to-day commander of U.S. forces in Iraq at the time, did not focus on the killings themselves.

The Washington Post published details of the Bargewell report's findings on Saturday. Spokesmen for the U.S. Marine Corps did not immediately respond to phone messages requesting comment.

Bargewell's report was said to have found what it called "inattention and negligence, in certain cases willful negligence," among marine officers who reported the civilian deaths immediately up their chain of command in ways that the report said were "untimely, inaccurate and incomplete."

It particularly criticizes the division commander, Major General Richard Huck, and the regimental commander, Colonel Stephen Davis, as failing to investigate the civilian deaths, according to lawyers who have read the report.

The Bargewell report, which was recently declassified, also established that junior officers, including a captain who issued a news release on the episode that blamed a roadside bomb planted by insurgents for most of the deaths, knew from the beginning that marines had killed the civilians, the lawyers said.

The captain, Jeffrey Pool, told Bargewell's investigators that he was given reports from battalion commanders that accurately described the marines' killing of civilians, said lawyers who read the report. But Pool said he issued a news release blaming the insurgents for the deaths because he believed that they were ultimately the result of the roadside bombing of the convoy that led the marines to strike back, the lawyers said.

"The way I saw it was this," Pool told two colonels questioning him, according to a lawyer who read the report. "A bomb blast went off, or was initiated, that is what started, that is the reason they're getting this, is a bomb blew up, killed people. We killed people back and that's the story."

Lawyers for the four officers charged with failing to properly investigate the civilian killings say the inaccurate news release created a false perception that the U.S. Marine Corps chain of command had covered up the killing of civilians.

"It was a colossal blunder," a lawyer involved in the case said. But the lawyer also said that Pool's thinking reflected that of his superiors, who believed that civilian casualties, though regrettable, were an inevitable part of the Iraq war.

"That's the rubric that the whole division was operating under," the lawyer said. The Bargewell report, he said, came to a similar conclusion. "It just was the culture of the marine corps," he said, paraphrasing the report, "to think that the Iraqis' story was propaganda, and didn't investigate."

Lawyers representing the four officers charged in the case - two captains, a first lieutenant and a lieutenant colonel who reported the civilian deaths immediately - said the Bargewell report showed that military prosecutors had charged their clients with failing to investigate but gave their superior officers, including Huck and Davis, a pass.

"It's understandable why they didn't go after the line officers," said Kevin McDermott, who represents Captain Lucas McConnell, the company commander who was not at the scene of the shootings in Haditha. "They would have had to throw Huck under the bus as well."