The scheduled court-martial of SSgt Frank Wuterich and the aborted
trial of former Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich don’t seem to have
much in common at first glance.
Blagojevich is a grasping Illinois politician
with a bouffant hairdo prone to blabbing. Wuterich is a hardcore, quiet
Marine who wears his hair high and tight. Both however are charged with
crimes simple in name and so complex in character it is hard to understand
exactly what crimes they are charged with committing, much less why.
The notion comes, from all places, a New
York Times report about jurors being confused about what the defendant
was charged with, how to determine his guilt, and exactly what the
erstwhile governor’s motives were. According to today's electronic
Times, “Jurors said it took them several days just to figure out how
to begin to break down their assignment into manageable tasks — not to
mention how to understand the legal terminology… “
It sounded familiar. Wuterich has at various
times been charged with a variety of heinous crimes. Originally he was
charged with murder, lying, and conspiring to cover up the incident. It
seems useful to list them as the Marine Corps made them on Dec. 21, 2006….
And no, “2006” is not a typo!
Charge I: Violation of the UCMJ,
Article 118 (Unpremeditated murder) (Maximum punishment: such punishment
other than death as a court-martial may direct. [Dishonorable discharge,
forfeiture of all pay and allowances, confinement for life])
Specification 1: did murder Ahmed Khutar
Musleh, also known as Ahmed Fenr Muselh.
Specification 2: did murder Wagdi Aida Alzawi, also known as Wgedi Aida
Abd.
Specification 3: did murder Kaled Aida Alzawi, also known as Kaled Aida
Abd.
Specification 4: did murder Mohmed Tabal Ahmed, also known as Mohmed Betel
Ahmed.
Specification 5: did murder Akram Hamid Flaeh, also known as Akram Hmid
Fluih.
Specification 6: did murder Huda Yasin Ahmed.
Specification 7: did murder Aida Yasin Ahmed.
Specification 8: did murder Mohmed Yunis Salim.
Specification 9: did murder Aisha Unes Salim.
Specification 10: did murder Sebea Yunis Salim.
Specification 11: did murder Zainab Unes Salim.
Specification 12: did murder Marwan Aiad Ahmed. (Charge dropped)
Specification 13: did murder six persons inside a house identified as
House 1, by disregarding the requirement to have positive identification
prior to engaging a target; and participating in clearing House 1 with
deadly force without conducting positive identification prior to engaging
individuals in House 1.
Charge II: Violation of the UCMJ, Article 134 (Soliciting Another
to commit an offense) (Maximum punishment: Dishonorable discharge,
forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 5 years)
Specification 1: did wrongfully solicit Corporal Dela Cruz to make a false
official statement.
Specification 2: did wrongfully solicit Corporal Dela Cruz to make a false
official statement.
Charge III: Violation of the UCMJ, Article 107 (False official
statement) (Maximum punishment: Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all
pay and allowances, and confinement for 5 years)
Specification: did with intent to deceive, make a false official
statement.
After government prosecutors, led by the same
LtCol Sean Sullivan who will prosecute Wuterich on September 13,
determined those charges weren’t a good fit they changed them, and then
changed them again, degrading the complaints to lesser charges when the
motivating malice to commit such terrible deeds failed to materialize. In
both cases the government threw the book at them. Cops and prosecutors
like to say “we’ll throw everything up against the wall and see what
sticks.”
Blagojevich was charged with 24 counts of
violating Federal law including trying to sell a Senate seat, conspiring,
lying, and performing various other misdeeds apparently so vague the jury
could only find him guilty of lying to a Federal investigator. The jury
instructions ran more than a hundred pages, and was as “elaborate as some
income tax forms,” according to jurors confronted with the case. “And many
of the 24 counts they were being asked to consider came in multiple parts
and were highly technical and interconnected,” the Times said.
“It was like, ‘Here’s a manual, go fly the
space shuttle,'” one of the jurors reportedly said.
The Times determined the “jury’s
conclusion came as a surprise to many since prosecutors had long suggested
that their evidence would be overwhelming.”
“A lot of it came down to, ‘What was his
intent?’ ” one juror said. “You could infer something if you looked at it
one way, or not if you looked another.”
The judge decided the jury was so flummoxed by
the complexity of the prosecution’s case he declared a mistrial. The
Times quoted another juror saying the jury that deliberated for 14
days was “all over the place” trying to decide if Blagojevich was guilty
of anything else. Meanwhile millions of dollars and thousands of
irreplaceable man hours went up in a puff of smoke.
In Wuterich’s case, the government has already tried seven times – eight
times if the co-opted person of Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz is counted – to find
somebody guilty of something at the so-called “Haditha Massacre.”
Ironically, it is the same event local officials in Haditha, Iraq told
North County Times reporter Mark Walker and Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland they
call the “Haditha
Accident.”
When the gushing city officials told Helland on November 22, 2008 how
happy they were with the Marines' intervention, he was still was the
convening authority who decided there was enough evidence of wrong-doing
to prosecute Wuterich. It still seems very confusing. Meanwhile millions
of dollars and thousands of man hours has already gone up in smoke.
No doubt the panel – a military’s name for a jury – in Wuterich’s
court-martial will be confronted with the same confusing obstacles
Blagojevich’s vexed jury faced. The first roadblock they will have to
overcome is determining intent, said Neal Puckett, Wuterich’s lead
civilian attorney. What possessed Wuterich to lead a four-man fire team
from a decimated, battle rattled squad of Marine infantrymen in an attack
where the civilians died? As Puckett pointed out, “The truth of the story
is yet to be revealed.”
So what is the secret “truth” behind Wuterich’s intent that day? He didn’t
know the five Iraqi men who died inside his 100-meter security zone
seconds after a huge IED killed one of his Marines and wounded two others.
All he knew was his primary responsibility was to protect his Marines from
more damage so he killed them. He admits it. It is what he was trained to
do, Wuterich says.
Neither did he know that 15 civilians, the 15 his fire team killed, were
in houses he assaulted after his platoon leader told him to “clear South.”
The government still contends he should have made a personal
identification (PID) before pulling the trigger. The MOUT (Military
Operations on Urban Terrain) training Wuterich received, both in the
States and Iraq, didn’t have a provision for PIDing while assaulting a
“hostile” house. The correct manner of assaulting a “hostile” house was to
stack, kick in the door, throw in a grenade, and follow up with withering
weapons fire aimed center mass at anything that moved. The Marines did
that, but it still doesn’t prove intent. So what was his intent?
Duty comes to mind. Marines must do their
duty. They even have a song about it. Disregarding the convoluted,
latently obtained, divinely reconstructed physical evidence that “proves”
Wuterich may or may not have shot anyone; it still takes a lot of guts to
lead rather than order men into a potential killing field. Wuterich could
have fallen back to a safe position and called in an airstrike. Puckett,
himself a former Marine, says that the Rules of Engagement in play that
day allowed just such a move. In fact, Wuterich’s battalion commander LtCol Jeffrey Chessani did just that to a house 600 meters away.
That brings up another point. Puckett is going
to introduce evidence that proves Wuterich was within the boundaries of
the existing Rules of Engagement on November 19, 2005 when he and his men
counterattacked after a sophisticated ambush had taken out a quarter of
his 12-man squad. Puckett said Wuterich cannot be charged with violating
the ROE because the Marine Corps changed the rules “after” Wuterich
deployed his fire team. Simply stated, Wuterich can’t be charged with a
crime that wasn’t one when he did it. It is a fundamental principal of
American jurisprudence, Puckett said.
The government is calling 47 witnesses. Many
of them are Marines and former Marines who served with Wuterich at Haditha
that day. One of them is Justin L. Sharratt, a 20-year old who didn’t even
have to participate in the attack that would cause him so much pain.
Sharratt was sitting in a Humvee providing security when he saw Wuterich’s
shorthanded, ad hoc, fire team disappearing across a wadi toward the
houses where automatic weapons fire had originated from.
By the time Sharratt dismounted his M-240
“Golf” machine gun from its mount and ran 200 meters (600 feet) to the
squad’s location, the clearing operation was already over. There was no
rage, no stated or implicit desire for revenge, he says. The platoon
leader said “clear the buildings” and they did it. The attack was so
sudden, vicious and complete that nobody survived except two “leakers”
that fled when the attack began. Sharratt intends to testify exactly that,
he said.
Several hours later Sharratt and Wuterich
cleared another fortified house. This time they encountered four men armed
with at least two AK-47 assault rifles. The veteran of Fallujah heard a
bolt “rack,” the very alarming sound of a bullet entering a chamber.
Sharratt, now armed with a Squad Automatic Weapon, entered anyway. When
his weapon jammed he withdrew behind a wall and pulled his pistol.
The second time he entered the room, Wuterich
had his back. Both men fired until the Iraqis were down. In other times
and other places both men would have received high decorations for valor.
It takes incredible bravery to enter a room where armed men lay in wait.
Instead, Sharratt was charged with murder, charges that Gen James N.
Mattis later dropped.
In writing his reasons for dropping
unpremeditated murder charges against Sharratt, Mattis said that
brutality, including the death of innocents, is a part of war.
"The experience of combat is difficult to
understand intellectually and very difficult to appreciate emotionally."
Mattis wrote. "With the dismissal of these charges LCpl Sharratt may
fairly conclude that he did his best to live up to the standards, followed
by U.S. fighting men throughout our many wars, in the face of life or
death decisions made in a matter of seconds in combat. And as he has
always remained cloaked in the presumption of innocence, with this
dismissal of charges, he remains in the eyes of the law — and in my eyes —
innocent."
__________________________________________
Nathaniel R. Helms
Defend Our Marines
19 August 2010
Note: Nat Helms is a Contributing Editor to Defend Our
Marines. He is a Vietnam veteran, former police officer, war
correspondent, and, most recently, author of
My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story (Meredith Books, 2007).
