DEFEND OUR MARINES

______________________________________________________

Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani
Article 32 Summary

Key witnesses and testimony

Day One / Wednesday, May 30

1st Lt. Alexander Martin

A platoon second lieutenant in Haditha in 2005.

• Had no reason to suspect a possible war crime when he inspected the sites in Haditha.

• Encountered "screaming mothers and angry fathers" a day after the killings when he toured the neighborhood where they took place. "The people were very standoffish and scared," he said. "The men were staring at us."

Haditha residents were much more cooperative after the Nov. 19 incident, Martin testified.

"After Nov. 19, people would come up to me and tell me where the IEDs were," he said.

[Source: North County Times, New York Times]

Capt. James Haynie

Identified in the press as a bomb strike coordinator and a company commander.

• Two Iraqis complained to him two days after the incident. One told him that members of his family had been pulled from their homes and shot by the Marines. The other protested that the men who emerged from the car were students on their way to the city of Ramadi.

• Brought concerns to Capt. Lucas McConnell, one of the officers facing dereliction of duty charges. Haynie said McConnell later told him that the car had AK-47 assault rifles in it and that some of the men wore "chest rigs" carrying explosives.

Capt. Haynie also testified that Marines use a computer program to estimate how many civilians are likely to be killed when a bomb is dropped from the air. If more than 30 will die, that is considered a high number of civilian deaths but, "under no circumstances does collateral damage preclude you from delivering ordinance."

[Sources: Associated Press, North County Times]

1st Lt. Max Frank

A Kilo Company platoon commander, given immunity to testify. Lt. Frank arrived on the scene four hours after the insurgent ambush.

• Inspected the homes and supervised the removal of bodies. Saw the corpses of Iraqi women and children sprawled across a bed. Testified that nothing struck him as alarming about how a Marine squad had killed the civilians

• Delivered bodies to the facility's morgue the night of Nov. 19, 2005.

• Was told by his superiors to tell Haditha officials that the Marines were sorry for the civilian deaths, but it the result of allowing terrorists to use their homes to attack Marines.

• Testified that he took photos at the scene, but 1st Lt. Adam Mathes deleted the electronic images because he thought they were not allowed to have pictures of dead Iraqis on personal equipment.

Quote: "From my perspective at the time, my assumption was my Marines were doing the right thing....I rationalized it to myself as they were taking fire. The Marines could have come in, yelled at them to come out, and when they didn't come out they cleared the room with a fragmentation grenade....I didn't have any reason to believe that what they had done was done on purpose," Frank said, later adding that he did not believe the deaths represented a violation of the rules of engagement or international laws of armed conflict. "I assumed they had taken fire and they had made a mistake."

[Sources: Associated Press, North County Times, Marine Corps Times]

Sgt. Maj. Edward Sax

The 3rd Battalion's sergeant major.

Testified that Chessani visited Haditha the same day as the ambush, but instead of going to the houses where the women and children died, he inspected another site where Marines had been injured in a separate engagement. The sergeant major advised Chessani not to go to the locations immediately following the killings because it was too dark and dangerous in the area.

Sgt. Maj. Sax, who worked closely with Chessani, called his former boss "by far the strongest moral leader I have ever served with in my life." When asked if Chessani would have investigated the deaths if he'd suspected the Marines had done something wrong, Sax replied: "Without batting an eye."

Sax also testified members of the Haditha town council gave Chessani a written allegation that some of those slain had been rounded up and shot by Marines.

[Source: Associated Press]

____________________________

Day Two / Thursday, May 31

Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury

The prosecutor presentation the government's version of what happened that day.

The prosecutor claimed...

• some of the 24 Iraqis killed by Marines were shot in the head, several of them at such close range that the bodies had powder burns.

• the five young men killed near a car were standing still, possibly with their hands in the air to surrender.

• no weapons were found in the car or near the men's bodies. Nor were any weapons found in the three homes.

[Source: Los Angeles Times]

W. Hays Park

Lawyer in the Department of Defense. Parks was identified as one of the key authors of the military's rules requiring commanders to report any "possible, alleged or suspected" crime by their troops. Parks said that such rules were adopted after the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, in which commanders made only cursory inquiries in the days after the mass killing.

Called by the government, Parks spent more than six hours on the stand, spending much of it explaining how he helped write a regulation that requires an investigation whenever a "possible, alleged or suspected" violation of the law of war occurs.

Parks testified that the idea behind the rules of investigation is "to encourage the commander to continue the battle but turn over incidents to competent investigators rather than doing it themselves."

He said that the deaths of at least five Iraqi women and children should have raised enough suspicion from Marine commanders for them to order an immediate investigation.

The prosecutor, Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury, described in graphic terms how some of the victims died. He said that the women and children found in a bedroom in one of four homes stormed by the Marines after the bombing appeared to have died from head wounds.

Given that detail, Parks said that even a cursory examination by commanders on the scene should have indicated that something was wrong.

Atterbury then looked at photos of some of the civilians killed in Haditha. He asked Parks whether the fatal shootings of men, women and children, some of them shot in the head, would amount to an incident that merited investigation.

“The substantial number of head shots suggests to me that you have a nonresisting force. ... (It) raises issues,” Parks said.

After hearing several descriptions from Atterbury about what happened in Haditha, Parks said: "The fact is, a crime appears to have been committed. How could you not investigate that?"

He testified repeatedly that “when in doubt,” commanders must report any potential offense to higher headquarters.

Parks testified that while Chessani had a obligation to report the Haditha deaths to his superiors, he was not responsible for investigating the incident. (Two of the three charges against Chessani involve his alleged failure to probe what happened in Haditha.)

Quote: "You can't use Fallouja-style room-clearing in a place like Haditha," Parks testified

[Sources: Los Angeles Times, North County Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Times]

____________________________

Day Three / Friday, June 1

Maj. Gen. Richard Huck

Former commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, who at the time of the incident, was in charge of troops in Haditha. The general testified via video hookup from the Pentagon.

The general’s testimony in the Lt. Col. Chessani hearing changed considerably from his testimony in the Capt. Randy Stone hearing.

According to the Associated Press…

[Investigating Officer] Conlin and prosecutors asked Huck about a Haditha town council meeting Chessani attended eight days after the killings. At that session, prosecutor Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury said local residents gave Chessani written allegations that women and children were targeted inside their homes and that a group of men were "essentially executed" as they stood beside a car with their hands in the air.

Huck said that he should have been made aware of the document but was not, and that he learned that the town council meeting had occurred only when he testified at a hearing last month for another officer charged in the case.

(It should be noted that Col. R. Gary Sokoloski, the general's aide, has refused to testify.)

In the courtroom, Maj. Gen. Huck testified he relied on his lower level commanders for full and accurate reporting of events.

One of the first reports Huck saw indicated that Chessani had gone to the site of the bombing, a factor he said gave him a sense that the battalion commander was getting all the facts. According to other testimony, Chessani did not inspect the site of the ambush.

The general also said that a complaint by the Haditha town council on Nov. 27 that three entire families -- including several women and children -- had been killed in one of four homes stormed by the Marines following the bombing should have been brought to his attention. Chessani attended a meeting in which that complaint was issued in writing along with a request by the Iraqis for a formal investigation.

Regarding this report from the Haditha town council, Huck testified: "If that document was presented, this needs to be reported and that commander should be thinking 'Perhaps I should get an investigation started."

According to the Los Angeles Times…

Chessani's report, filed that night, indicated that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb and a firefight that followed between Marines and insurgents barricaded in the homes.

Evidence in Chessani's Article 32 preliminary hearing at Camp Pendleton showed that no weapons or insurgent shell casings were found in the homes and that the homes were more than 100 yards from where a bomb had killed a Marine and wounded two.

Defense attorneys say Chessani let his superior officers know that there had been civilian casualties, including women and children.

Prosecutors respond that the report was misleading in suggesting that the Marines were responding to gunfire and that some of the casualties had been caused by the roadside bomb.

According to the North County Times…

Late in the day of the killings, Chessani sent a report to regimental headquarters stating that 15 civilians and eight insurgents had died....

When asked by prosecutor Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury whether he had ever been made aware that three entire families were killed, including several women and children, Huck said he did not learn about the families until after an investigation was ordered in February 2006.

"I would have expected any new facts or discoveries to be reported," he said.

Atterbury asked Huck whether he had ever learned that Haditha officials alleged within days that the men in the car were students who had been, in the prosecutor's words, "essentially executed by the Marines."

"That should have been reported," Huck said.

Quote: "I think the question is did he report everything that he knew, and I have some questions about that," Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, testifying via video from the Pentagon.

[Sources: North County Times, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times    

Brig. Gen. John Toolan

According to the North County Times….

Brig. Gen. John Toolan also testified via video hookup from Washington, saying he has known Chessani for 18 years and considers him a man of strong values who always gave commanders a straight answer.

Toolan, who oversees Southeast Asia issues for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said he doubted Chessani would sit on bad news.

"I don't have any question that he would ever try to hide it or cover up," Toolan said.

 [Source: North County Times]

Lt. Col Christopher Starling

Operations officer, 2^nd Marine Regiment, at the time of the ambush. He read Lt. Col. Chessani's daily reports.

• Saw no need to launch an investigation at the time because he did not think a war crime had taken place. As the Associated Press noted, dozens of other Marines have testified along similar lines at this and earlier proceedings.

• Confirmed that during the entire deployment, their area of responsibility was constantly being assaulted by foreign terrorists. He confirmed that these terrorists routinely used women and children as shields to attack Marines from.

• Said that Lt. Col. Chessani's area of operation was a little smaller than the state of South Carolina. He testified that LtCol Chessani and his battalion performed incredibly well during their deployment to Iraq.

Quote: "If there was no sign of the enemy and we killed civilians, that's something that needs to be reported up," Starling, who is deployed at sea, testified via telephone. "Part of our job is protecting the civilian populace. If it's unwarranted, that's something you'd want to look into."

[Source: Associated Press, Los Angeles Times]   

____________________________

Day Four / Saturday, June 2

Maj. Samuel Carrasco

Operations officer, 3rd Battalion.

Testified that the last terrorist they found that day went into a house and grabbed a child in order to pretend he was a civilian family member. The only reason the terrorist’s ruse was discovered was that blood was coming from his ears

Recommended that Lt. Col Chessani not visit the site of the ambush.  “I was of the opinion that day and still believe that Lt. Col. Chessani could best serve the battalion by staying in the (Command Operations Center),” Carrasco said.

Quote: [In a meeting after the incident] "We said, 'Hey, sir, this is going to get bad very fast if we don't do something,' " Carrasco testified. "He raised his voice, which is something he rarely did, and said, 'My men are not murderers.' We adjourned the room."

[Source: Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union]

____________________________

Day Five / Monday, June 4

1st Lt. Adam Mathes

Kilo Co. executive officer.

Testified that he overheard Chessani and Capt. Lucas M. McConnell talking about how to “spin” the deaths in Haditha. Defense attorney Robert J. Muise accused Mathes of not correctly remembering the conversation.

Testified that he did not believe the killings constituted a violation of the laws of armed conflict.

[Source: North County Times]

Lt. William Kallop

Platoon CO, the only officer on the scene during most of the incident. The lieutenant (granted immunity) testified just prior to the 3/1's third deployment to Iraq.

Testified, as in the Capt. Randy Stone hearing, that he did not believe the slayings represented a violation of the laws of armed conflict.

[Source: North County Times]

____________________________

Day Six / Tuesday, June 5

First Lt. Mark E. Towers

A battalion legal adviser in Iraq in 2005.

Testified to Lt. Col. Chessani's character as "a godly man".

Colonel Conlin asked Lieutenant Towers, who was , if a report by Colonel Chessani’s staff to the regiment stating that the colonel had examined the scene of the civilian casualties “implied that he went there.”

Lieutenant Towers answered firmly, “Yes, sir.”

[Source: New York Times, Los Angeles Times]

Capt. Oliver B. Dreger

Testified that one of the explanations for the deaths in Haditha – that 15 of the Iraqis were killed by a roadside bomb – as “ridiculous on its face.” Also testified that neither he nor other officers felt obliged to correct the accounts about what happened that day in Haditha. That's because the civilians' deaths were linked to combat between Marines and insurgents, he testified.

The errant information was apparently sent to higher military headquarters. 

[Source: San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Times]

Maj. Carroll Connelley

One of the 1st Marine Regiment's command staff attorneys at the time of the incident.

• Frustrated by the dearth of details from lower-ranking Marines. After the incident, Connelley said he sought elaboration after an initial report was light on specifics. No commanders sought a probe into the deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha in the days and weeks after the incident, he said.

“I would've asked for an investigation” if reports had documented how no weapons or insurgents were found among the dead civilians, Connelley testified.

He said that in light of the misinformation, especially the premise that civilians got caught up in bona-fide combat, Chessani was not required to investigate the incident further.

"My understanding, at least at the time, was that they were out in the open," Connelly said of the first report, which said 15 civilians had been killed as a result of the bombing and small-arms fire. "(The report) says they were out moving past the vehicles."

If the initial report had in any way indicated that the civilians were killed inside their homes where no insurgents nor weapons were found, Connelly said he would have raised questions.

He also testified that a formal demand for an investigation from the Haditha town council eight days after the killings was never brought to his attention. He said he also did not know until much later that the dead included several women and children found lying in supplicant positions inside a bedroom.

"It was something different than what I had always pictured," Connelly said.

[Sources: San Diego Union Tribune, North County Times]

____________________________

Day Seven / Wednesday, June 6

Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore

Intelligence officer, 3rd Battalion.

Testified that Marine officers decided the deaths were combat-related and thus no investigation was warranted.

According to the Los Angeles Times, in a sometimes bitter exchange with prosecutors, he denounced the Marine Corps for charging Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani with dereliction of duty.

"Politically, the Marine Corps made a decision to hang Col. Chessani out to dry," said Dinsmore, who has served for 20 years and is now deployed to Iraq. He added that he feels the investigation is hurting the corps.

Dinsmore, in testimony that was videotaped earlier this year, said Marines had developed intelligence prompting them to prepare for a complex attack involving roadside bombs and small-arms fire, with insurgents hiding among civilians in their homes.

The events seemed to fit that pattern, he said: A bomb exploding under a Humvee and a nearby firefight that erupted after Marines stormed three houses and killed 19 civilians inside.

With an increasing tone of incredulity, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan, the lead prosecutor in the Article 32 inquiry for Chessani, repeatedly asked Dinsmore whether he had requested a report on the deaths of 24 civilians in the Haditha incident.

"No, sir," Dinsmore answered.

According to the Associated Press, Chessani's defense team called Dinsmore as a witness to describe what was happening around Haditha in the months leading up to the killings. He said insurgents regularly used hospitals and mosques to launch attacks. Men pretending to be asleep in a house shot and killed a Marine when he entered.

"They would exploit any hesitation in order to gain an advantage," Dinsmore said.

After he learned of the roadside bomb blast, Dinsmore said he sent an unmanned aerial surveillance vehicle into the skies above Haditha, where it circled for much of the rest of the day.

The bomb that killed Terrazas was only the first of a citywide series of attacks that left several other Marines injured and insurgents dead, Dinsmore said. He recalled Nov. 19 as being the busiest day of combat in the battalion's tour.

Grainy, black-and-white images captured by the aerial drone were briefly displayed in the courtroom. The photographs showed views of Haditha and what Dinsmore described as insurgents meeting in a palm grove and a house in which they subsequently hid.

Marines went on to raid that house, but several were injured when insurgents threw grenades at them. The Marines then ordered a missile strike that destroyed the house and killed its occupants.

Dinsmore said the feeling among the Marine battalion at the end of the day was that they did well. The commanding general in charge of Marines in Haditha at the time, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, was briefed about the day's combat actions three days later, including details about women and children dying in their homes.

Huck was "congratulatory" about the battalion's actions, Dinsmore testified.

Dinsmore and other Marines initially said eight of the 24 Iraqis killed were insurgents, a claim that was repeated up and down the chain of command and in a press release the day after the attack. But under cross examination from Sullivan, Dinsmore conceded he had no solid evidence to support the claim and said it was possible that all 24 of the Iraqi dead were innocent civilians.

[Source: Los Angeles Times, Associated Press]
___________________________

Day Eight / Thursday, June 7

Staff Sgt. Justin Laughner

Granted immunity to testify.

Testified that 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson "pressured" him to erase photographs of the dead in Haditha from his computer. The reason was that they would not be part of a statement being prepared for top-ranking officers and a Time magazine reporter. Laughner said he felt the order amounted to obstruction of justice but that he complied and later lied when asked whether any pictures had been taken.

Laughner said he didn't know if Lt. Col. Chessani ever saw the photographs.

The sergeant testified that he arrived several hours after the roadside bomb. He said Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who led the troops involved in the shootings, told him the men in the car had "engaged" the Marines with weapons, which Marines encountered an insurgent firing at them in one house and that weapons were found in the houses.

Laughner testified that when he went to the houses to look for evidence of insurgents, he instead found a wounded girl screaming hysterically. Through an interpreter, "she said the Marines came into her house and killed her family," Laughner said.

Lt. Grayson's attorney said he did not attend Thursday's hearing and could not comment on Laughner's testimony.

[Sources: San Diego Union Tribune, Associated Press]

Major Dana Hyatt, the Civil Affairs officer for the battalion, also testified that he knew that women and children had been killed on November 19th, but that this was an unfortunate by-product of war. Major Hyatt testified that he spoke with some of the Marines involved in the clearing of houses from which the terrorists attacked. Major Hyatt stated that one Marine said he heard AK-47s racking.

Maj. Hyatt's testimony was not covered in the media.

____________________________

Day Nine / Friday, June 8

Major Thomas F. Osterhoudt, the 2nd Marine Division Comptroller, testified to his role in paying compensation to the civilians that were killed.

Maj. Osterhoudt's testimony was not covered in the media.

____________________________

Day Ten / Saturday, June 9

Lt. Col. Chessani

The accused gave unsworn testimony in his defense.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani told the investigating officer at his preliminary hearing Saturday that he did not believe he had done anything criminally wrong in the aftermath of a Marine shooting in the town of Haditha that left 24 Iraqi civilians dead.

"I would say to you, I do not believe my decisions and actions were criminal, sir," Chessani told Col. Christopher Conlin.

Chessani, 43, faces a possible court-martial for not calling for a war-crimes investigation after Marines in his battalion killed 24 Iraqis on Nov. 19, 2005....

In a six-minute statement, Chessani said that even if he were to be court-martialed, his feelings for the Marine Corps would not be affected. "I still respect the Marine Corps and I have no hard feelings and I won't, regardless of how this comes out," Chessani said in a clear, almost emotionless voice.

Chessani addressed a key issue of the court hearing: why he didn't visit the three houses where his Marines killed 19 of the civilians, including three women and seven children. Conlin, a former infantry battalion commander, has quizzed several witnesses on the matter.

Chessani said that the day of the shootings was one of "nonstop action," with roadside bombings and firefights throughout Haditha and nearby communities.

He said that when he left his command center, he visited the site of the most significant battle of the day, a firefight in which up to 11 Marines were injured. It ended only when he called in an airstrike to demolish a building where insurgents were hiding, Chessani said.

Testimony by other witnesses indicated that Chessani never visited the three houses where the civilians were killed. The lieutenant who gave the order to "clear" the houses testified that Marines thought insurgent gunfire had come from the direction of the homes.

In his statement, Chessani did not say why he hadn't questioned his Marines about the killings.

Nor did he mention why he allowed a report to be filed that day with his superiors indicating erroneously that he had visited the site of the civilian killings.

Chessani, a Marine for 19 years, is the highest-ranking Marine officer to face charges from Iraq or Afghanistan. He was on his third tour in Iraq.

Several character witnesses praised Chessani for coolness under fire and truthfulness.

"He's a Christian, an upright man," Col. Brennan Byrne testified Saturday in a telephone call from Saudi Arabia. "As a Marine officer, he has shown impeccable integrity. I would trust him with my life."

Quote: "I understand that I am accountable for my decisions and actions, but I do not believe that my actions and my decisions were criminal."

Day Eleven / Saturday, June 11

And in closing...

From Reuters: