Post by MARIO on May 30, 2006 17:41:16 GMT -8
A Few Facts About Haditha
Philip V. Brennan
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
It's exactly what they've been waiting for, an incident that can be exploited to weaken the morale of the American people, hasten the premature withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, and further bludgeon the hated George W. Bush.
Put the word Haditha in Google and you find reams of stories all but shouting Hallelujah over what they're calling the new My Lai – the alleged massacre of innocent civilians in Haditha.
John Murtha, a retired Marine who has traded in his proud Eagle Globe and Anchor Marine Corps symbol for the jackass symbol of the defeatist Democrat party, is shouting from the rooftops that Marines killed innocent civilians "in cold blood" even though an investigation of the incident remains incomplete.
What that investigation by the crack Naval Investigative Service will reveal nobody knows, and those close to the investigation are not talking. That, however, has not stopped the likes of John Murtha and the pitiful Nancy Pelosi from joining the chorus of leftist anti-war groups and the liberal media from playing judge and jury and finding the Marines involved in the incident as guilty as sin.
Those on the Hill who have been briefed on the incident advise waiting for the results of the investigation before rushing to judgment. House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter further warns against using the incident to blacken the reputation of American troops, saying, "I don't want to see these troops who have done such a magnificent job end up being portrayed in the American media by what comes out of the Haditha investigation."
Which of course is exactly what is being done by the traitorous leftist media.
Hardly mentioned at all in the hysterical coverage of Haditha is the nature of this city hard by the Syrian border. If you think Fallujah was a hornet's nest of insurgency, you should take a look at Haditha and what the Marines have been facing there.
Here, for instance, is an Oct. 7, 2005 report from CNN headlined "Marines Find Insurgency's Deadly Tools in Haditha ... Weapons Cache found buried in courtyard of Mosque." A photo shows the small arsenal in the allegedly holy place.
"U.S. Marines and members of Iraqi Special Forces on Thursday uncovered a sizable weapons cache hidden in a shrine and yard adjacent to a mosque in east-central Haditha, close to the Euphrates River, and continued to uncover deadly buried roadside bombs. The city itself is almost literally an improvised explosive device (IED) field," CNN reported.
The report continued: "Marines have been finding suspicious wires protruding from the asphalt throughout the city. Buried underneath are usually two to four 155 mm rounds and sometimes propane tanks."
In an Aug. 4, 2005 story, "Haditha's Horror" in Slate, Eric Umansky reported: "Everybody leads with 14 Marines and one interpreter killed when a massive bomb hit their lightly armored vehicle in western Iraq. The Marines were from the same unit – and in the same town, Haditha – as six Marine snipers who were killed earlier in the week.
"The bomb was so big it flipped the 25-ton amphibious troop carrier, called an Amtrac, which then caught on fire. As the Los Angeles Times notes, the Amtrac's exit hatches are on top. Only one Marine inside survived. Marines moved through Haditha a few months ago and met little resistance. As the New York Times puts it, the guerrillas just 'seemed to melt away.' ... U.S. commanders in the region have complained they don't have enough troops and end up sweeping towns only to be replaced by guerrillas. 'We require more manpower to cover this area the way we need to,' one military official told the LAT in May."
Knight Ridder called Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people, "an insurgent bastion," reporting that "insurgents blend in with the residents, setting up cells in their homes next to those belonging to everyday citizens, some of them supportive." Knight Ridder said that around the time of the August attack, when a total of 20 U.S. Marines were killed in two days, "several storefronts were lined with posters and pictures supporting al Qaeda. ...
"There is no functioning police station and the government offices are largely vacant. The last man to call himself mayor relinquished the title earlier this year after scores of death threats from insurgents."
Writing on hughhewitt.com, Mary Katherine Ham reported that the Washington Post "has been unable to get anyone from the Pentagon on the record on the investigation, using mostly anonymous sources. The one man they did get on the record on Friday was retired Brig. Gen. David H. Brahms, a long-time lawyer with the Marine Corps who has experience with these types of cases. His quote is in the third paragraph. See if you can guess why the prominent first-quote placement:
"'When these investigations come out, there's going to be a firestorm,' said retired Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, formerly a top lawyer for the Marine Corps. 'It will be worse than Abu Ghraib – nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib.'
"I have a feeling someone was lying in wait for an Abu Ghraib reference. I read the quote and was taken aback because I spoke to the same Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms about the case this week, and his sentiments were very different from those presented in the Post. Which explains why he sent me this statement yesterday:
"'Recent reporting on the events in Haditha, Iraq have included significant factual errors and/or misleading statements. This includes a quote attributed to me in the Washington Post this morning that was taken completely out of context and its meaning distorted. Many facts that are favorable to the Marines involved have not yet been disclosed.'
"When Brahms and I spoke, he made it clear that his concern is that the Marine Corps do a thorough investigation and punish severely those who did wrong, if in fact it is found that they did. He feels confident that will happen. His other concern is that the Marines involved get a fair trial in a highly politicized environment:
"'The worst thing that can happen in a case of this kind is to have it politicized ... that's exactly what has happened here. They're leaking a story which is yet unwritten.
"'It's not normal to have a Member of Congress to decide to have hearings, at least while this whole business is in flux.
"'I think there has been . ... This has got to impact the fairness of the procedure.
"'We'll get more precise information. Let's kind of step back, let's try to realize that there's another side of this story. ... People accused may be guys like my son and your brothers."
"'The problem is, of course, that everybody's got a political agenda ... in the middle are a group of American Marines.'"
I don't know what happened in Haditha. As a Marine veteran I am inclined to believe that this group of Marines, part of the best-trained and best-disciplined generation of any the Corps has sent into combat, was simply not capable of committing the atrocity of which they have been charged in the media.
Keep in mind the fact that the witnesses being quoted in the media are residents of a city where even the U.S. military admits they can't tell a terrorist from an innocent civilian. I recommend that everybody take a look at Rush to Judgment against Haditha Marines ( www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/27/124438.shtml ) for a calmer perspective.
Particularly worth noting is the fact that the IED that killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, 20, was, as the Los Angeles Times reported, "a type that would have required someone to detonate it." That someone had to be located in one of the nearby houses. Remember the CNN report that "Marines have been finding suspicious wires protruding from the asphalt throughout the city. Buried underneath are usually two to four 155 mm rounds and sometimes propane tanks."
I may be wrong – and if I am, somebody is going to have to pay – but in the meantime, it would be a good idea to sit back and wait for the facts to emerge.
Semper Fi
www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/5/30/185746.shtml
Philip V. Brennan
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
It's exactly what they've been waiting for, an incident that can be exploited to weaken the morale of the American people, hasten the premature withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, and further bludgeon the hated George W. Bush.
Put the word Haditha in Google and you find reams of stories all but shouting Hallelujah over what they're calling the new My Lai – the alleged massacre of innocent civilians in Haditha.
John Murtha, a retired Marine who has traded in his proud Eagle Globe and Anchor Marine Corps symbol for the jackass symbol of the defeatist Democrat party, is shouting from the rooftops that Marines killed innocent civilians "in cold blood" even though an investigation of the incident remains incomplete.
What that investigation by the crack Naval Investigative Service will reveal nobody knows, and those close to the investigation are not talking. That, however, has not stopped the likes of John Murtha and the pitiful Nancy Pelosi from joining the chorus of leftist anti-war groups and the liberal media from playing judge and jury and finding the Marines involved in the incident as guilty as sin.
Those on the Hill who have been briefed on the incident advise waiting for the results of the investigation before rushing to judgment. House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter further warns against using the incident to blacken the reputation of American troops, saying, "I don't want to see these troops who have done such a magnificent job end up being portrayed in the American media by what comes out of the Haditha investigation."
Which of course is exactly what is being done by the traitorous leftist media.
Hardly mentioned at all in the hysterical coverage of Haditha is the nature of this city hard by the Syrian border. If you think Fallujah was a hornet's nest of insurgency, you should take a look at Haditha and what the Marines have been facing there.
Here, for instance, is an Oct. 7, 2005 report from CNN headlined "Marines Find Insurgency's Deadly Tools in Haditha ... Weapons Cache found buried in courtyard of Mosque." A photo shows the small arsenal in the allegedly holy place.
"U.S. Marines and members of Iraqi Special Forces on Thursday uncovered a sizable weapons cache hidden in a shrine and yard adjacent to a mosque in east-central Haditha, close to the Euphrates River, and continued to uncover deadly buried roadside bombs. The city itself is almost literally an improvised explosive device (IED) field," CNN reported.
The report continued: "Marines have been finding suspicious wires protruding from the asphalt throughout the city. Buried underneath are usually two to four 155 mm rounds and sometimes propane tanks."
In an Aug. 4, 2005 story, "Haditha's Horror" in Slate, Eric Umansky reported: "Everybody leads with 14 Marines and one interpreter killed when a massive bomb hit their lightly armored vehicle in western Iraq. The Marines were from the same unit – and in the same town, Haditha – as six Marine snipers who were killed earlier in the week.
"The bomb was so big it flipped the 25-ton amphibious troop carrier, called an Amtrac, which then caught on fire. As the Los Angeles Times notes, the Amtrac's exit hatches are on top. Only one Marine inside survived. Marines moved through Haditha a few months ago and met little resistance. As the New York Times puts it, the guerrillas just 'seemed to melt away.' ... U.S. commanders in the region have complained they don't have enough troops and end up sweeping towns only to be replaced by guerrillas. 'We require more manpower to cover this area the way we need to,' one military official told the LAT in May."
Knight Ridder called Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people, "an insurgent bastion," reporting that "insurgents blend in with the residents, setting up cells in their homes next to those belonging to everyday citizens, some of them supportive." Knight Ridder said that around the time of the August attack, when a total of 20 U.S. Marines were killed in two days, "several storefronts were lined with posters and pictures supporting al Qaeda. ...
"There is no functioning police station and the government offices are largely vacant. The last man to call himself mayor relinquished the title earlier this year after scores of death threats from insurgents."
Writing on hughhewitt.com, Mary Katherine Ham reported that the Washington Post "has been unable to get anyone from the Pentagon on the record on the investigation, using mostly anonymous sources. The one man they did get on the record on Friday was retired Brig. Gen. David H. Brahms, a long-time lawyer with the Marine Corps who has experience with these types of cases. His quote is in the third paragraph. See if you can guess why the prominent first-quote placement:
"'When these investigations come out, there's going to be a firestorm,' said retired Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, formerly a top lawyer for the Marine Corps. 'It will be worse than Abu Ghraib – nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib.'
"I have a feeling someone was lying in wait for an Abu Ghraib reference. I read the quote and was taken aback because I spoke to the same Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms about the case this week, and his sentiments were very different from those presented in the Post. Which explains why he sent me this statement yesterday:
"'Recent reporting on the events in Haditha, Iraq have included significant factual errors and/or misleading statements. This includes a quote attributed to me in the Washington Post this morning that was taken completely out of context and its meaning distorted. Many facts that are favorable to the Marines involved have not yet been disclosed.'
"When Brahms and I spoke, he made it clear that his concern is that the Marine Corps do a thorough investigation and punish severely those who did wrong, if in fact it is found that they did. He feels confident that will happen. His other concern is that the Marines involved get a fair trial in a highly politicized environment:
"'The worst thing that can happen in a case of this kind is to have it politicized ... that's exactly what has happened here. They're leaking a story which is yet unwritten.
"'It's not normal to have a Member of Congress to decide to have hearings, at least while this whole business is in flux.
"'I think there has been . ... This has got to impact the fairness of the procedure.
"'We'll get more precise information. Let's kind of step back, let's try to realize that there's another side of this story. ... People accused may be guys like my son and your brothers."
"'The problem is, of course, that everybody's got a political agenda ... in the middle are a group of American Marines.'"
I don't know what happened in Haditha. As a Marine veteran I am inclined to believe that this group of Marines, part of the best-trained and best-disciplined generation of any the Corps has sent into combat, was simply not capable of committing the atrocity of which they have been charged in the media.
Keep in mind the fact that the witnesses being quoted in the media are residents of a city where even the U.S. military admits they can't tell a terrorist from an innocent civilian. I recommend that everybody take a look at Rush to Judgment against Haditha Marines ( www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/27/124438.shtml ) for a calmer perspective.
Particularly worth noting is the fact that the IED that killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, 20, was, as the Los Angeles Times reported, "a type that would have required someone to detonate it." That someone had to be located in one of the nearby houses. Remember the CNN report that "Marines have been finding suspicious wires protruding from the asphalt throughout the city. Buried underneath are usually two to four 155 mm rounds and sometimes propane tanks."
I may be wrong – and if I am, somebody is going to have to pay – but in the meantime, it would be a good idea to sit back and wait for the facts to emerge.
Semper Fi
www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/5/30/185746.shtml
