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Defend Our Marines / September 7, 2007
Letter of Censures for Top Commanders at Haditha
a Double-Edged Sword
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The Secretary of the Navy’s decision to
issued letters of censure to the three senior officers commanding the
Marines fighting at Haditha, Iraq is a double-edged sword that both
mitigates and exacerbates Lt Col Jeffrey Chessani’s legal situation,
one of his lawyers said.
Chessani, the former battalion commander of 3rd
Battalion, 1st Marines, faces five counts of dereliction
duty for failing to adequately investigate and report what happened at
Haditha, Iraq more than 30 months ago.
Attorney and Marine veteran Brian Rooney says that
when Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter delivered the letters to
Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, formerly the 2nd Marine Division
Commanding General, his chief of staff Col. R. Gary Sokoloski, and
Col. Stephen W. Davis, the Regimental Combat Team-2 commander, it
showed that the Marine brass believes Chessani told his superiors
everything he knew of the incident in a timely fashion. At the same
time censuring the most senior officers in the division before
Chessani’s fate is determined “corrupts” the potential jury pool of
senior officers who may be called upon to judge his command decisions,
Rooney said
“On the positive side, from day one we have said
Lt. Col. Chessani sent up the chain of command all the facts. And it
was already established by witnesses that higher headquarters had the
responsibility to decide what to investigate. I kind of think these
senior officers believed this was a difficult battle they fought and
won,” Rooney said. “On the other hand, the colonels and brigadier
generals who will have to be on his [jury] panel now think he (Chessani)
must have done something wrong. The timing is terrible.”
Three of the charges against Chessani stem from his
alleged failure to investigate and report 24 civilian deaths at
Haditha on November 19, 2005 after a squad of 3/1 marines was
ambushed in an IED attack. The ambush triggered a city-wide all-day
fight that left 24 Iraqis and one Marine dead, and 11 Marines wounded.
Testimony at Chessani’s Article 32 hearing almost three months ago by
retired Marine Col. W. Hays Parks clearly showed in was the senior
commander’s duty and responsibility to order any subsequent
investigation.
The Navy Secretary’s action was a career ending
move for the three senior Marines. Not only will they be forced to
retire, they could lose both rank and retirement privileges and
benefits as well. Lt Gen. J. N. Mattis, the convening authority and
final arbiter it the mater, made the recommendations to Winter to
censure the officers.
Conversely, his recommendation to punish Chessani’s
commanders leaves Chessani exposed to all the legal responsibility for
what happened at Haditha in the event the prosecution convinces Mattis
to send Chessani to courts-martial.
Davis and Sokoloski avoided any such possibility by
standing on their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and
refusing to testify. Huck blames them and Chessani for keeping him in
the dark about the civilian deaths. Huck was reportedly punished
because he failed to look into the matter until Time magazine reporter
Tim McGirk repeatedly questioned Davis and Sokoloski about the alleged
murders.
In a sworn statement before he took the Fifth,
Sokoloski said he kept the information from Huck for two weeks before
advising him of McGirk’s allegations. He said he did so because he
thought they were baseless. All of the censured officers watched and
listened to the battle unfold through a variety of intelligence gather
means including Predator, Scan Eagle, and Dragon Eye Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles videotaping the entire battlefield. This information was
available to the entire command staff in real time as the battle
progressed.
“We had Scan Eagle from
about 0830 until 1700. Predator joined in from about 1030-1400 or
so. Scan Eagle was used to maintain continuous PID [Positive
Identification] on human targets as they fled from neighborhood to
neighborhood. We used Predator's IR [Infra Red] camera to identify
them within the palm grove (hotspots) where they were attempting to
hide and to get the bombs on target. Both were used to guide helos
and fixed wing air support on to the targets,” one intelligence
officer explained.
The announcement of the punishment against the
three officers came on the third day of a hearing for Staff Sgt. Frank
D. Wuterich, the last enlisted man to face murder charges in
connection with the Haditha killings. Wuterich, 27, is charged with
killing 17 people, including a group of seven women and children
hiding in a house, in the hours after a roadside bomb killed a Marine
lance corporal named Miguel “T.J.” Terrazas. The young Marine was on
his second deployment in Iraq when a mine artfully concealed under
fresh asphalt exploded under his Humvee and blew him in half. Two
other Marines were grievously injured in the attack.
Fallujah investigation
Meanwhile the investigation against Marines
suspected of murdering at least four Iraqi prisoners of war more than
three years ago grinds on. On Friday the US Attorney for Central
California announced former Marine Sergeant Jose Nazario, a squad
leader in Kilo Company, 3/1, has been indicted on two counts of
voluntary manslaughter at Fallujah on November 9, 2004. Nazario was
fired from his job as a probationary police officer on the Riverside,
California police department when he was arrested.
Also charged with unpremeditated murder under the
Uniform Code of Military Justice for the same incident is Sgt.
Jermaine Nelson, currently stationed at Camp Pendleton. Nazario was
Nelson’s squad leader. At Fallujah Nelson was an assaultman. His
statement is reportedly the most self-incriminating among the
statements given to investigators.
Noticeable by its absence was any statement from
former Cpl. Ryan Weemer, the Marine who originally brought the
allegations to light. There is, however, at least one statement that
implicates him as a shooter in the alleged incident.
In addition, at least five 3rd Platoon,
Kilo Co. enlisted men and one officer have given statements to Naval
Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Mark Fox about the events
that allegedly happened in Fallujah. Their sworn and unsworn
statements run the gamut from suggesting Iraqi prisoners were killed
in cold blood to statements emphatically denying the incident ever
took place at all, despite the fact all the Marines were concentrated
together in a very small area.
The officer who provided a statement, a highly
respected and decorated former lieutenant in Kilo Co, reportedly
refused to take a polygraph examination when asked by NCIS Special
Agent Mark Fox, sources said. The former lieutenant – now recalled as
a captain - said that if his word as an officer and his reputation as
a warrior wasn’t good enough nobody would believe him anyway.
Fox is the investigator who filed the affidavit in
U.S. District Court for Central California alleging that Nazario
killed two Iraqi prisoners in the heat of combat. The lieutenant, who
led the platoon for more than two years, dismissed the entire incident
as a fabrication. He said there was never any mention of any prisoner
being captured that day.
Two other enlisted Marine, however, loosely
corroborated Nelson’s statement, sources said. The NCIS is still
investigating to determine who the Marine was that allegedly gave the
order over the radio to Nazario to kill the prisoners, None of the
Marines interviewed by Fox were aware to either the radio conversation
at the time or who made it, sources said. Two of the Marines
interviewed – one the former platoon radio operator – said they never
heard any such conversation take place during the entire Fallujah
battle.
Nathaniel R. Helms
Defend Our Marines
7
September 2007
Note: Nat Helms is a Contributing Editor to Defend Our
Marines. He is a Vietnam vet, journalist, combat reporter, and, most
recently, author of
My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story (Meredith Books, 2007). |