Remember Haditha

In the vast list of wartime atrocities, Haditha ranks very low, but the remarkable transparency provided by the American media permits us to look closely at a small massacre (fifteen people) to understand how men act in war.

Here are a few passages from the New York Times article of 7 January 2007:

"An American government report on the killing of 24 Iraqis, including several women and children, by marines in the village of Haditha in 2005 provides new details of how the shootings unfolded and supports allegations by prosecutors that a few marines illegally killed civilians, government officials said yesterday.

"The report, by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, contains thousands of pages of interviews with marines, Iraqi Army soldiers who had accompanied them and Iraqi villagers who had seen the attack. The shootings followed a roadside bombing that killed a young lance corporal and wounded two other marines, said a senior Defense Department official and another official who had read the report.

"The evidence contained in the report, the most exhaustive of several inquiries begun by the military last year to determine what happened in Haditha that day, led prosecutors to charge four enlisted marines with murder. Four marine officers, who were not present during the attack, were also charged with dereliction of duty and other crimes for failing to properly report details of the episode.

"The four enlisted men charged with unpremeditated murder, all members of a squad of Company K, Third Battalion, First Marines, are: Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich of Meriden, Conn.; Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz, 24, of Chicago; Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, 22, of Carbondale, Pa.; and Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, 25, of Edmond, Okla.

"The attack on the Iraqis began after the roadside bomb blew up one of four Humvees the marines were traveling in on Nov. 19, 2005. Minutes after that, the report portrays Sergeant Wuterich, the squad leader, and Sergeant Dela Cruz as killing five men who had nervously piled out of a taxi that had stopped near the marine convoy, the officials said.

"The men 'were shot by Wuterich as they stood, unarmed, next to the vehicle approximately 10 feet in front of him,' the report said, according to a person who has read it.

"Sergeant Dela Cruz said that as he approached the taxi, he saw some men standing near it with their hands in the air, officials said. After Sergeant Wuterich shot them, he continued shooting as they lay on the ground, and later urinated on one of them, an official said.

"The marines, taking small arms fire from several locations near homes on either side of the convoy, attacked a home nearby, killing six people, including a young boy, a woman and two elderly people, none of them armed, the report said, according to officials and people who have read it.

"In one of the houses the marines raided, the report said, a 13-year-old girl, Safah Yunis Salem, said she survived by pretending to be dead after marines killed several family members, including her 3-year-old sister and 5-year-old brother, government officials said."