L'affaire a été révélée par le magazine Time du 20 mars. Depuis, elle est comparée au massacre de My Lai en 1968, pendant la guerre du Vietnam. Deux quotidiens américains, le New York Times et le Los Angeles Times, affirment dans leurs éditions du vendredi 26 mai que l'enquête criminelle ouverte le 14 février par la marine américaine devrait conclure que les 24 civils irakiens tués le 19 novembre 2005, dont sept femmes et trois enfants dans le village d'Haditha, à 250 kilomètres au nord-ouest de Bagdad, ont été délibérément massacrés par des marines.
Ce jour-là, la compagnie Kilo du troisième bataillon de la première division de marines est victime, au petit matin, d'une attaque avec une bombe dissimulée sur le bord de la route à l'entrée d'Haditha, dans la province sunnite d'Anbar. Un communiqué de l'armée, daté du 20 novembre, annonce que l'explosion a provoqué la mort du caporal Miguel Terrazas, 20 ans, le marine qui conduisait le véhicule, et de quinze civils irakiens. Deux autres militaires ont été blessés. Devant les protestations locales, l'armée américaine fournit en janvier une autre explication. Après l'explosion, les marines auraient été pris sous des feux nourris d'armes automatiques. Ils seraient entrés dans plusieurs maisons pour riposter, et auraient saisi deux fusils d'assaut.
Dans la confusion, ils auraient abattu à la fois des assaillants et des civils. L'armée américaine a versé alors aux survivants 2 500 dollars par civil mort et quelques centaines de dollars aux blessés.
Mais le témoignage des rescapés et les enquêtes menées par Time et la marine racontent une tout autre histoire. Celle de la vengeance aveugle d'une unité qui, après la mort d'un de ses hommes, est entrée dans des habitations irakiennes pour abattre leurs occupants, certains même dans leur lit. "L'enquête montre que les marines ont volontairement tué des civils irakiens désarmés, dont des femmes et des enfants, et ont essayé ensuite de couvrir le massacre intervenu à Haditha, l'un des bastions de l'insurrection", écrit le Los Angeles Times daté du 26 mai.
Selon le New York Times du même jour, "une enquête militaire sur la mort de deux douzaines d'Irakiens en novembre 2005 devrait conclure qu'un petit nombre de marines a tué, dans l'ouest de l'Irak, sans provocation et de façon extensive, des civils irakiens".
DES CIVILS TUÉS DE SANG-FROID
Il y a une semaine, le représentant démocrate John Murtha, ancien colonel des marines et héros de la guerre du Vietnam, déclarait après avoir reçu des informations du Pentagone sur l'affaire : "Des marines ont tué des civils innocents de sang-froid. C'est bien pire que le rapportait le magazine Time. Il n'y a pas eu d'échanges de tirs et presque deux fois plus d'Irakiens tués que l'a écrit le Time."
Au mois d'avril, le commandant du bataillon de marines impliqué et deux chefs de compagnie ont été relevés de leurs fonctions par le général Richard Natonski, qui dirige la division et qui "a perdu confiance en eux". Selon le Los Angeles Times et le New York Times, l'enquête devrait déboucher sur des inculpations devant une Cour martiale pour "meurtre, homicide par négligence et faux rapports". Cela ferait de la tuerie d'Haditha, le plus grave crime de guerre impliquant l'armée américaine en Irak.
Coïncidence, le président des Etats-Unis, George Bush, et le premier ministre britannique, Tony Blair, ont reconnu l'un et l'autre pour la première fois, jeudi, lors d'une conférence de presse à la Maison Blanche, "avoir commis des erreurs en Irak". Pour George Bush, "la plus grosse" tient aux exactions commises contre des détenus irakiens de la prison d'Abou Ghraib : "Nous l'avons payé longtemps." _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
L'affaire a été révélée par le magazine Time du 20 mars. Depuis, elle est comparée au massacre de My Lai en 1968, pendant la guerre du Vietnam. Deux quotidiens américains, le New York Times et le Los Angeles Times, affirment dans leurs éditions du vendredi 26 mai que l'enquête criminelle ouverte le 14 février par la marine américaine devrait conclure que les 24 civils irakiens tués le 19 novembre 2005, dont sept femmes et trois enfants dans le village d'Haditha, à 250 kilomètres au nord-ouest de Bagdad, ont été délibérément massacrés par des marines.
Îáñòîÿòåëüñòâà äåëà âñêðûëèñü ïîñëå ñîîòâåòñòâóþùåé ïóáëèêàöèè â æóðíàëå Time.
Âïîñëåäñòâèè äâà àìåðèêàíñêèõ èçäàíèÿ çàÿâèëè â ñâîèõ ïóáëèêàöèÿõ îò 26 Ìàÿ 2006 ÷òî óãîëîâíîå ðàññëåäîâàíèå, íà÷àòîå 14 ôåâðàëÿ Àìåðèêàíñêîé Àðìèåé, äîëæíî ïîäòâåðäèòü ÷òî 19 Íîÿáðÿ 2005 ìîðñêèå ïåõîòèíöû íàìåðåíî/ñîçíàòåëüíî óáèëè 24 ÷åëîâåêà (ãðàæäàíñêèå ëèöà, èç íèõ ñåìåðî æåíùèí è òðîå äåòåé) â äåðåâíå Haditah íàõîäÿùåéñÿ â 250 êì íà ñåâåðî-âîñòîê îò Áàãäàäà. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
WASHINGTON, May 25 — A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.
An image from videotape taken shortly after a fatal raid in Haditha, Iraq. Residents there said several marines carried out unprovoked killings.
Two lawyers involved in discussions about individual marines' defenses said they thought the investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. That possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq.
Officials briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at Haditha, a lawless, insurgent-plagued city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, did not die from a makeshift bomb, as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers, as was later announced. A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up.
Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.
That evidence, described by Congressional, Pentagon and military officials briefed on the inquiry, suggested to one Congressional official that the killings were "methodical in nature."
Congressional and military officials say the Naval Criminal Investigative Service inquiry is focusing on the actions of a Marine Corps staff sergeant serving as squad leader at the time, but that Marine officials have told members of Congress that up to a dozen other marines in the unit are also under investigation. Officials briefed on the inquiry said that most of the bullets that killed the civilians were now thought to have been "fired by a couple of rifles," as one of them put it.
The killings were first reported by Time magazine in March, based on accounts from survivors and human rights groups, and members of Congress have spoken publicly about the episode in recent days. But the new accounts from Congressional, military and Pentagon officials added significant new details to the picture. All of those who discussed the case had to be granted anonymity before they would talk about the findings emerging from the investigation.
A second, parallel inquiry was ordered by the second-ranking general in Iraq to examine whether any marines on the ground at Haditha, or any of their superior officers, tried to cover up the killings by filing false reports up the chain of command. That inquiry, conducted by an Army officer assigned to the Multinational Corps headquarters in Iraq, is expected to report its findings in coming days.
In an unusual sign of high-level concern, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flew from Washington to Iraq on Thursday to give a series of speeches to his forces re-emphasizing compliance with international laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and the American military's own rules of engagement.
"Recent serious allegations concerning actions of marines in combat have caused me concern," General Hagee said in a statement issued upon his departure. The statement did not mention any specific incident.
The first official report from the military, issued on Nov. 20, said that "a U.S. marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb" and that "immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire."
Military investigators have since uncovered a far different set of facts from what was first reported, partly aided by marines who are cooperating with the inquiry and partly guided by reports filed by a separate unit that arrived to gather intelligence and document the attack; those reports contradicted the original version of the marines, Pentagon officials said.
One senior Defense Department official who has been briefed on the initial findings, when asked how many of the 24 dead Iraqis were killed by the improvised bomb as initially reported, paused and said, "Zero."
While Haditha was rife with violence and gunfire that day, the marines, who were assigned to the Third Battalion, First Marines, and are now back at Camp Pendleton, Calif., "never took what would constitute hostile fire of a seriously threatening nature," one Pentagon official said.
Women and children were among those killed, as well as five men who had been traveling in a taxi near the bomb, which killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso.
Although investigators are still piecing together the string of deaths, Congressional and Pentagon officials said the five men in the taxi either were pulled out or got out at a Marine checkpoint and were shot.
The deaths of those in the taxi, and inside two nearby houses, were not the result of a quick and violent firefight, according to officials who had been briefed on the inquiry.
"This was not a burst of fire, but a sustained operation over several hours, maybe five hours," one official said. Forensic evidence gathered from the houses where Iraqi civilians died is also said to contradict reports that the marines had to overcome hostile fire to storm the homes.
Members of the House and Senate briefed on the Haditha shootings by senior Marine officers, including General Hagee and Brig. Gen. John F. Kelly, the Marine legislative liaison, voiced concerns Thursday about the seriousness of the accusations.
Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is a retired Marine colonel, said that the allegations indicated that "this was not an accident. This was direct fire by marines at civilians." He added, "This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity."
The deaths, and the role of the marines in those deaths, is being viewed with such alarm that senior Marine Corps officers briefed members of Congress last week and again on Wednesday and Thursday.
The briefings were in part an effort to prevent the kind of angry explosion from Capitol Hill that followed news of detainee abuse by American military jailers at Abu Ghraib prison, which had been quietly under investigation for months before the details of the abuse were leaked to the news media. "If the accounts as they have been alleged are true, the Haditha incident is likely the most serious war crime that has been reported in Iraq since the beginning of the war," said John Sifton, of Human Rights Watch. "Here we have two dozen civilians being killed — apparently intentionally. This isn't a gray area. This is a massacre."
Three Marine officers — the battalion commander and two company commanders in Haditha at the time — have been relieved of duty, although official statements have declined to link that action to the investigation.
Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said he expected senators would review investigators' evidence, including photographs by military photographers that Mr. Warner said were "taken as a matter of routine in Iraq on operations of this nature when there's loss of life."
Lawyers who have been in conversations with the marines under investigation stressed the chaotic situation in Haditha at the time of the killings. And they expect that the defense will stress that insurgents often hide among civilians, that Haditha on the day of the shootings was suffering a wave of fluid insurgent attacks and that the marines responded to high levels of hostile action aimed at them.
Much of the area around Haditha is controlled by Sunni Arab insurgents who have made the city one of the deadliest in Iraq for American troops. On Aug. 1, three months before the massacre, insurgents ambushed and killed six Marine snipers moving through Haditha on foot. Insurgents released a video after the ambush that appeared to show the attack, and the mangled and burned body of a dead serviceman. Then, two days later, 14 marines were killed when their armored vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb near the southern edge of the city.
The Marines also disclosed this week that a preliminary inquiry had found "sufficient information" to recommend a criminal probe into the killing of an Iraqi civilian on April 26 near Hamandiyah, a village west of Baghdad. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
L'enquête sur l'assassinat de civils irakiens à Haditha confirme l'implication des marines
LEMONDE.FR | 31.05.06 | 19h53 • Mis à jour le 31.05.06 | 20h43
Six mois après les faits, les mises en cause s'accumulent contre l'armée américaine, soupçonnée d'avoir tué 24 civils, dont des femmes et des enfants, en novembre 2005, dans la ville irakienne de Haditha (nord-ouest de Bagdad) en représailles après la mort d'un de ses hommes. Après les révélations de la presse, les accusations des élus et les aveux, à demi-mots, du Pentagone, le New York Times enfonce le clou dans son édition du 31 mai en dévoilant les conclusions de l'enquête militaire sur cette affaire.
Le colonel Gregory Watt, l'officier en poste en Irak qui a conduit cette enquête en février et en mars, est parvenu à la conclusion que les victimes ont été exécutées par balle, vraisemblablement par les marines, victimes d'une embuscade de la guérilla. Parmi les pièces à conviction citées, des certificats de décès contredisant les affirmations du Pentagone, qui soutenait que les civils avaient trouvé la mort lors de l'explosion d'une mine. "Toutes les victimes irakiennes portaient des traces de blessures mortelles par balle, dans la tête ou la nuque", affirme le New York Times, confortant la thèse que les GI, aveuglés par la rage d'avoir perdu l'un des leurs lors d'un attentat la matinée précédant le massacre, se sont livrés à des exécutions sommaires à Haditha avant de tenter de dissimuler leurs agissements.
Face aux critiques croissantes, la Maison Blanche s'était engagée, mardi, à informer les Américains des résultats de l'enquête militaire ouverte sur cette affaire.
UN "MY LAI IRAKIEN"
De plus en plus de médias américains comparent déjà cette tuerie à celle de My Lai, le 16 mai 1968 au Viêtnam, lorsque des militaires américains avaient tué un demi-millier de villageois. Un massacre qui avait à l'époque fortement ému l'opinion publique américaine et ébranlé le moral des soldats engagés dans le conflit vietnamien tout en motivant le combat des pacifistes.
"Le massacre de Haditha a porté davantage atteinte aux objectifs des Etats-Unis en Irak que le scandale des exactions à la prison d'Abou Ghraïb", a affirmé pour sa part John Murtha, membre démocrate à la Chambre des représentants et ancien marine.
Selon des informations parues dans la presse, les enquêteurs devraient demander des inculpations pour meurtre, homicide par négligence, manquement au devoir et rédaction d'un faux rapport. La revue Time, qui a révélé cette affaire en mars, affirme que trois officiers, dont un commandant de compagnie et un commandant de bataillon, ont d'ores et déjà été relevés de leurs fonctions.
Dans sa première réaction publique à cette affaire, le président George W. Bush s'est dit, mercredi, "troublé". "Ceux qui ont enfreint la loi, si la loi a été enfreinte, seront punis", a-t-il promis. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Tuerie d'Haditha : les coupables seront punis, affirme George Bush
LE MONDE | 01.06.06 | 13h50 • Mis à jour le 01.06.06 | 13h50
"JE SUIS TROUBLÉ par les premières informations" rendues publiques, a dit le président américain, George Bush, à propos de la tuerie d'Haditha, au cours de laquelle au moins 24 civils irakiens ont été tués, le 19 novembre 2005. "Ceux qui ont enfreint la loi, si la loi a été enfreinte, seront punis", a indiqué M. Bush à la presse à l'occasion d'une rencontre à la Maison Blanche avec son homologue rwandais Paul Kagamé. M. Bush a rappelé que des "investigations approfondies", menées par les militaires, étaient en cours afin de savoir si les marines ont tenté de travestir la vérité après la tuerie.
D'après la version initiale, les victimes avaient péri dans l'explosion d'un engin dissimulé au bord de route. Selon le magazine Time et des témoignages rapportés par la presse, cette version a été remise en cause. Les civils, parmi lesquels des enfants, auraient été abattus de sang-froid par les marines en représailles à la mort de l'un des leurs dans une explosion.
Dans son édition de mercredi 31 mai, le New York Times, citant un haut responsable militaire, écrit que les certificats de décès font état pour chacun des morts de blessures par balles, pour la plupart à la tête et à la poitrine. Le caporal James Crossan, blessé ce jour-là lors de la première explosion et inconscient au moment des faits, a donné les explications suivantes sur CNN : "A Haditha, on ne sait jamais qui sont les méchants. On a trouvé la majorité d'entre eux et on s'en est débarrassé, mais le coin est plein d'insurgés. (...) Ils ont pu avoir peur, ou alors ils étaient seulement en colère, vraiment en rage, et ils l'ont fait. (...) Après avoir vu tant de morts et de destruction, assez rapidement on devient insensible et on n'y pense plus vraiment." - (AFP.) _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Un habitant de Haditha se souvient
LEMONDE.FR | 31.05.06 | 20h38 • Mis à jour le 01.06.06 | 08h13
Les habitants de Haditha sont bien loin de la polémique qui enfle à Washington. Six mois après les faits, ils tentent seulement de faire le deuil.
"J'ai regardé à travers les rideaux. Ils sont entrés de force chez nos voisins et j'ai entendu plein de coups de feu. J'ai cru que notre maison serait la suivante", se souvient Abou Hassan, qui refuse de livrer son identité complète par peur de représailles.
Ce 19 novembre, quatre frères sont morts chez les voisins d'Abou Hassan. Il a d'abord eu peur en entendant non loin de chez lui l'explosion d'une mine, fatale à un marine, ce jour-là. "J'ai regardé quelques minutes plus tard et j'ai vu des marines tirer de loin sur deux maisons. Puis ils sont entrés dans ces maisons et j'ai entendu des fusillades. Ils se déplaçaient en petits groupes", raconte-t-il.
"Un groupe s'est rendu chez mes voisins plus de deux heures après l'explosion de la bombe. Après leur entrée, il y a eu plein de coups de feu. La mère a commencé à crier 'mes fils ! mes fils !'. Elle a continué à crier longtemps après leur départ, dit-il. Nous avons essayé de la calmer mais il n'y avait rien à faire."
D'après Abou Hassan, les marines ont tué les quatre fils adultes de cette femme – Djamal, Chassib, Kahtaan et Marouane. "Les Américains sont entrés et ils ont jeté une grenade dans la salle de bains. Ils ont tué mon père dans la cuisine. Puis ils nous ont tiré dessus. J'ai fait semblant d'être morte", raconte Safa Younis, adolescente de 12 ans, seule rescapée d'une famille de huit personnes, dont le témoignage sur un enregistrement vidéo a été diffusé par l'organisation irakienne de défense des droits de l'homme, Hammurabi.
"Maintenant, les enfants s'enfuient lorsqu'ils voient des Humvee américains. Je suis un adulte de 47 ans et je suis aussi terrifié. Quand je vois encore des snipers américains sur les toits des habitations, je change de direction", conclut Abou Hassan. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
The article Military Inquiry Said to Oppose Account of Raid
Published: May 31, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 30 — A military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November were victims of a roadside bomb, according to a senior military official in Iraq.
Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the marines' story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said.
The investigation, which was led by Col. Gregory Watt, an Army officer in Baghdad, also raised questions about whether the marines followed established rules for identifying hostile threats when they assaulted houses near the site of a bomb attack, which killed a fellow marine.
The three-week inquiry was the first official investigation into an episode that was first uncovered by Time magazine in January and that American military officials now say appears to have been an unprovoked attack by the marines that killed 24 Iraqi civilians. The results of Colonel Watt's investigation, which began on Feb. 14, have not previously been disclosed.
"There were enough inconsistencies that things didn't add up," said the senior official, who was briefed on the conclusions of Colonel Watt's preliminary investigation.
The official agreed to discuss the findings only after being promised anonymity. The findings have not been made public, and the Pentagon and the Marines have refused to discuss the details of inquiries now underway, saying that to do so could compromise the investigation.
When Colonel Watt described the findings to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the senior ground commander in Iraq, on March 9, they raised enough questions about the marines' veracity that General Chiarelli referred the matter to the senior Marine commander in Iraq, who ordered a criminal investigation that officials say could result in murder charges being brought against members of the unit.
Colonel Watt's findings also prompted General Chiarelli to order a parallel investigation into whether senior Marine officers and enlisted personnel had attempted to cover up what happened.
Colonel Watt's inquiry included interviews with marines believed to have been involved in the killings, as well as with senior officers in the unit, the Third Battalion of the First Marine Regiment.
Among them were Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, whom officials had said was one of the senior noncommissioned officers on the patrol, and Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the battalion commander, the senior official said. Colonel Chessani was relieved of his command in April, after the unit returned from Iraq.
In their accounts to Colonel Watt, the marines said they took gunfire from the first of five residences they entered near the bomb site, according to the senior military official.
The official said the marines had recalled hearing "a weapon being prepared to be used against them."
Colonel Watt also reviewed payments totaling $38,000 in cash made within weeks of the shootings to families of victims.
In an interview Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt, the officer who made the payments, said he was told by superiors to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but was told that rest of those killed had been deemed to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.
After the initial payments were made, however, those families demanded similar payments, insisting their relatives had not attacked the marines, Major Hyatt said.
Major Hyatt said he was authorized by Colonel Chessani and more senior officers at the marines' regimental headquarters to make the payments to relatives of 15 victims.
Colonel Chessani "was part of the chain of command that gives the approval," Major Hyatt said.
"Even when he signs off on it," the major added, "it still has to go up to" the unit's regimental headquarters.
Colonel Chessani declined to comment on Tuesday when visited at his home at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
The list of 15 victims deemed to be noncombatants was put together by intelligence personnel attached to the battalion, Major Hyatt said. Those victims were related to a Haditha city council member, he said. The American military sometimes pays compensation to relatives of civilian victims.
The relatives of each victim were paid a total of $2,500, the maximum allowed under Marine rules, along with $250 payments for two children who were wounded. Major Hyatt said he also compensated the families for damage to two houses.
"I didn't say we had made a mistake," Major Hyatt said, describing what he had told the city council member who was representing the victims. "I said I'm being told I can make payments for these 15 because they were deemed not to be involved in combat."
The military began its examination of the killings only after Time magazine presented the full findings of its investigation to a military spokesman in Baghdad in early February.
General Chiarelli, an Army officer who took command of American ground forces in Iraq in January, learned soon after the spokesman was notified that the Marines had not investigated the incident, according to the senior military official.
On Tuesday, the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said President Bush first became aware of the episode after the Time magazine inquiry, when he was briefed by Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser. "When this comes out, all the details will be made available to the public, so we'll have a picture of what happened," Mr. Snow said. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Irak : l'armée américaine aurait menti pour dissimuler la tuerie d'Haditha
LE MONDE | 02.06.06 | 13h38 • Mis à jour le 02.06.06 | 13h38
Pourquoi a-t-il fallu attendre les révélations du magazine Time, en mars, pour que l'armée américaine s'interroge sur ce qui s'est réellement passé le matin du 19 novembre 2005, dans le village d'Haditha, à 250 kilomètres au nord-ouest de Bagdad, au bord de l'Euphrate ?
Parallèlement à l'enquête criminelle menée par la marine américaine sur les circonstances de la mort de vingt-quatre civils - dont sept femmes et trois enfants -, qui devrait conduire à des inculpations pour meurtre par la justice militaire, une enquête administrative a aussi été lancée. Les conclusions seront remises dans les prochains jours au haut commandement. Dirigée par le général Eldon Bargewell, cette investigation s'annonce explosive, selon des fuites publiées, entre autres, par le Washington Post du jeudi 1er juin.
M. Bargewell dénonce le comportement de soldats et d'officiers, qui ont volontairement falsifié les informations données à leurs supérieurs. Il met en cause l'attitude de ces derniers qui, au mieux, ont fait preuve de négligence. Dans un premier communiqué, daté du 20 novembre 2005, l'armée américaine annonçait que l'explosion d'une bombe sur le bord d'une route, à Haditha, avait provoqué la mort du caporal Miguel Terrazas et de quinze civils irakiens. En janvier, une autre version expliquait qu'après l'explosion, les marines auraient été pris sous des feux d'armes automatiques et seraient entrés dans plusieurs maisons pour riposter. Le scénario tenu pour le plus vraisemblable aujourd'hui est celui de la vengeance aveugle d'une unité qui, après la mort d'un de ses hommes, est entrée dans des habitations pour tuer leurs occupants au hasard.
DYSFONCTIONNEMENTS
Le rapport du général Bargewell met l'accent sur deux points. D'abord, sur le fait que le sergent Frank Wuterich, à la tête de l'unité mise en cause - la compagnie Kilo du 3e bataillon de la 1re division -, a fait un faux rapport à ses supérieurs, affirmant que les quinze civils irakiens tués avaient été victimes de l'explosion de la bombe. Les autres neuf Irakiens morts étaient alors présentés comme des insurgés, ce qui ne semble pas être le cas.
L'autre problème concerne une seconde unité de marines, qui a participé ce jour-là à la récupération des corps des victimes, et n'a pas pu ne pas se rendre compte que ces civils avaient été tués par balles. Si ces marines n'avaient pas, à leur tour, masqué la vérité avec la complicité d'officiers, l'état-major de la 1re division aurait été informé des invraisemblances du rapport de la compagnie Kilo. Enfin, le général Bargewell affirme que l'entraînement des troupes en Irak ne les prépare pas à combattre une guérilla, mais met toujours l'accent sur les méthodes de combat traditionnelles.
Le rapport de M. Bargewell, vétéran de la guerre du Vietnam et expert des opérations spéciales, devrait donc avoir de sérieuses conséquences. Il dénonce les dérives et les dysfonctionnements au sein de l'armée sur lesquels s'interrogent bon nombre de parlementaires, notamment démocrates, depuis le scandale déclenché, il y a deux ans, par les tortures pratiquées à la prison d'Abou Ghraib. Il pose aussi la question de fond : l'armée américaine est-elle capable de mener une occupation et une lutte longue et difficile contre une insurrection dans un pays arabe ?
Signe de la gravité de la crise, le général Peter Chiarelli, qui commande les troupes américaines en Irak, a annoncé, jeudi, qu'elles recevront une formation spéciale sur les "valeurs éthiques" dans les trente jours. "Le défi (...) est de s'assurer que les actes d'un petit nombre ne ternissent pas le bon travail de la plupart", a-t-il déclaré. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Probe Into Iraq Deaths Finds False Reports
Pentagon to Review Training After Alleged Massacre in Haditha
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 1, 2006; Page A01
The U.S. military investigation of how Marine commanders handled the reporting of events last November in the Iraqi town of Haditha, where troops allegedly killed 24 Iraqi civilians, will conclude that some officers gave false information to their superiors, who then failed to adequately scrutinize reports that should have caught their attention, an Army official said yesterday.
The three-month probe, led by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, is also expected to call for changes in how U.S. troops are trained for duty in Iraq, the official said.
Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely. Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules. "It's going to include everyone in the coalition," the official said.
The promotion of a top Marine general also has been put on hold.
Bargewell has pursued two lines of investigation: not only whether falsehoods were passed up the chain of command, but also whether senior Marine commanders were derelict in their duty to monitor the actions of subordinates. The inquiry is expected to conclude by the end of this week, the official added. He said there were multiple failures but declined to say whether he would characterize it as a "coverup," as alleged recently by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine.
The Bargewell report, which is expected to be delivered to top commanders by the end of the week, is one of two major military investigations into what happened at Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, and how commanders reacted to the incident. The other is a criminal inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. That sprawling investigation involves more than 45 agents and is expected to conclude this summer, Pentagon officials and defense lawyers said yesterday. No charges have been filed, but people familiar with the case say they expect charges of homicide, making a false statement and dereliction of duty, among others.
President Bush, in his first public comment on the Haditha incident, said yesterday that if an investigation finds evidence of wrongdoing, those involved will be punished. "I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said after a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. "I am mindful there is a thorough investigation going on. If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment."
The Bargewell investigation is likely to be explosive on Capitol Hill, because it focuses on questions that have haunted the Bush administration and the U.S. military since the scandal over abuse at Abu Ghraib prison emerged two years ago: How do U.S. military leaders in Iraq react to allegations of wrongdoing by their troops? And is the military prepared to carry out the long and arduous process of putting down an insurgency as part of the first U.S. occupation of an Arab nation?
One of Bargewell's conclusions is that the training of troops for Iraq has been flawed, the official said, with too much emphasis on traditional war-fighting skills and insufficient focus on how to wage a counterinsurgency campaign. Currently the director of operations for a top headquarters in Iraq, Bargewell is a career Special Operations officer and therefore more familiar than most regular Army officers with the precepts of counterinsurgency, such as using the minimum amount of force necessary to succeed. Also, as an Army staff sergeant in Vietnam in 1971, Bargewell received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest honor, for actions in combat while a member of long-range reconnaissance team operating deep behind enemy lines.
In anticipation of the Bargewell report, the Marine Corps has placed on hold its plan to nominate Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, who was the top Marine in Iraq when the Haditha incident occurred, for promotion to lieutenant general, a senior Pentagon official said. That decision reflects concern that the report may conclude that leadership failures occurred at senior levels in Iraq. It also stands in sharp contrast to the Army's handling of the Abu Ghraib scandal, when the Pentagon forged ahead with plans to nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who had been the top commander on the ground in Iraq, for a fourth star. Sanchez's promotion has been in limbo for more than a year.
"I don't think the decision's been made" to scuttle the nomination, a Marine officer said. "I think we're going to wait and see."
In another reflection of top-level concern, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Marine commandant, has been traveling around Iraq this week and has visited nearly every Marine post in the country, an officer in Iraq said. Also, the Marine Corps issued a directive to its generals telling them not to discuss details of the Haditha case because such comments could compromise "the integrity of the investigative and legal processes" and because "it is not in the interests of the Marine Corps to 'further this story' by providing details or confirming information gathered from other -- mostly unnamed -- sources."
One of Bargewell's findings is that two failures occurred in reporting the Haditha incident up the Marine chain of command. The first is that Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, a squad leader alleged to have been centrally involved in the shootings, made a false statement to his superiors when he reported that 15 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the roadside bombing that killed a Marine and touched off the incident. (The other nine dead initially were reported by the Marines to have been insurgent fighters but are now believed to have been civilians.) That report was entered into an official database of "significant acts" maintained by the U.S. military in Iraq, the Pentagon official said.
A civilian attorney for Wuterich said he only recently had been retained by the Marine and has yet to interview his client, so could not comment on the case.
A second and more troubling failure occurred later in the day, this official said, when a Marine human exploitation team, which helped collect the dead, should have observed that the Iraqis were killed by gunshot, not by a bomb. The team's reporting chain lay outside that of the other Marines -- who were members of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marines -- and went up through military intelligence channels directly to the 1st Marine Division's intelligence director, he said. Had this second unit reported accurately what it witnessed, he indicated, that would have set off alarms and prodded commanders to investigate, he explained.
Bargewell's report also is expected to address why the Marine Corps let stand statements issued by official spokesmen that were known to be false at least two months ago. On Nov. 20, the day after the shootings, Marine Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool told reporters that the Iraqis died in a crossfire, stating that, "Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents." Time magazine, which first began making inquiries about the incident in January, reported that when one of its staff members asked Pool about the allegations, he accused the journalist of being duped by terrorists. "I cannot believe you're buying any of this," the magazine said the officer wrote in an e-mail. "This falls into the same category of any aqi [al-Qaeda in Iraq] propaganda." Another military representative, Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, told the magazine that insurgents caused the civilian deaths by placing the Iraqis in the line of Marine fire.
In March the magazine broke the news that Marines had killed Iraqi civilians at Haditha.
The Bargewell investigation evolved from a preliminary inquiry conducted in January by Army Col. Gregory Watt, the New York Times reported yesterday. Watt was asked by senior commanders to look into why there had been no formal Marine Corps review of the Haditha incident. After reviewing death certificates that showed the 24 Iraqis had been killed by gunshot rather than a bomb, as the Marine report had stated, Watt recommended a broader inquiry.
When the Marine leadership in Washington reviewed his report, a senior Marine said yesterday, it asked that an Army general step in to conduct the investigation, another indication that the actions of Johnson and other top officers have been a subject of Bargewell's review.
Bargewell did not respond to e-mails seeking comment. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Investigators of Haditha Shootings Look to Exhume Bodies
By Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 2, 2006; Page A16
Criminal investigators are hoping to exhume the bodies of several Iraqi civilians allegedly gunned down by a group of U.S. Marines last year in the city of Haditha, aiming to recover potentially important forensic evidence, according to defense officials familiar with the investigation.
A source close to the inquiry said Naval Criminal Investigative Service officials have interviewed families of the dead several times and have visited the homes where the shootings allegedly occurred to collect as much evidence as possible. Exhuming the bodies could help investigators determine the distance at which shots were fired, the caliber of the bullets and the angles of the shots, possibly crucial details in determining how events unfolded and who might have been involved.
The possible evidence was disregarded at first because the slayings originally were not treated as crimes.
NCIS officials said the Nov. 19 incident was not reported to them as a criminal case until nearly four months later -- on March 12 -- and the failure of the Marine Corps to request assistance from investigators sooner could create legal complexities.
The delay already has presented many hurdles for investigators, who have had to rely on dated information, witnesses and suspects who had months to tailor their stories, and a lack of fairly routine forensic evidence that should have been collected at the time the civilians were killed, according to Defense Department officials, defense attorneys and sources close to the criminal probe.
"We are definitely starting with a full count," said one official close to the investigation, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the case. "There's plenty of shoulda, woulda, coulda to go around in this case. We have lots of disadvantages going in, but we will re-create the incident as best we can."
The NCIS is an independent criminal investigative agency that is not in the military chain of command. Its probe has included as many as 50 special agents, forensics investigators and support personnel operating in Iraq and in the United States, the largest homicide investigation of its type since the war in Iraq began in 2003, according to Navy officials.
Ed Buice, a spokesman for the NCIS at the Washington Navy Yard, said yesterday that criminal investigators learned of the Haditha incident on March 12 -- nearly 16 weeks after it occurred -- when the Marine Corps officially requested an investigation. The probe began immediately, and three NCIS agents based in Iraq went to Haditha within 24 hours, Buice said.
"The investigation is labor-intensive, complex and time-consuming," Buice said. "NCIS is committed to following up on any and all tangible leads and evidence."
Buice said the investigation is ongoing and "will remain open until after the findings are adjudicated." While Defense Department officials anticipate potential charges of murder, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice, the NCIS has not yet reported its findings, and military commanders ultimately will decide what, if any, judicial procedures to initiate.
The NCIS will be looking at the days leading up to the roadside bombing that killed a member of the Kilo Company Marines and allegedly set off an emotion-laced spree of shootings in a series of homes near the explosion. The gruesome death of Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Tex., occurred shortly before Marines allegedly shot and killed a number of civilians, including women and children.
Now, officials close to the case said, investigators are starting with the men who allegedly were in the houses when shots were fired and working their way out from there.
Sources close to the case said the military is assembling a team of experienced prosecutors for the Haditha shootings case. Defense officials said the Pentagon and the Marine Corps are taking the investigation very seriously.
"I think it's going to be a very difficult case for them to prove," said Vaughan Taylor, a former military prosecutor and instructor in criminal law at the Army's Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School. On balance, he said, he would rather be a defense counsel in the case than prosecute for the government.
"I think there's plenty of avenues for defense in this case -- the fact that it wasn't initially investigated, the fact that there's been plenty of time for witnesses to play with stories. There's a lot of wiggle room in there."
The gap between the incident and the beginning of the NCIS investigation is going to cause major problems in prosecuting any charges, a Marine officer familiar with the case agreed. "They have huge proof problems," he said, citing the lack of identified bodies.
"The long and the short of it is, until they prove the cause of death," they don't have anything, said one civilian defense lawyer representing a Kilo Company Marine. "Photographs won't be enough to do it. Good luck with that."
Marine spokesmen at the Pentagon and at Marine Corps Forces Central Command have declined to comment, citing the investigation.
A separate investigation has found several failures in the aftermath of the shootings, according to top officials familiar with the probe. These include Marines giving false statements and officers in the chain of command not providing proper oversight in the weeks and months that followed. That probe, by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell, is expected to be finished this week.
Yesterday, the military announced that Marines and soldiers stationed in Iraq will undergo core values training to reinforce how troops should act on the battlefield. The move is a sign that commanders and leaders in Washington are concerned about the ramifications of the Haditha shootings in Iraq and at home.
Aine Donovan, director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College and a former Naval Academy professor, said Marines have more ethics training than most troops and that there is no excuse for what happened.
"If you look at what happened in Haditha, you had soldiers stressed to the point of no return, and they snapped," Donovan said. "This will be remembered as the worst episode of this war. This will damage the entire profession. You're never going to restore peace by killing civilians."
President Bush said yesterday that the training "is just a reminder for troops either in Iraq or throughout our military that there are high standards expected of them, and that there are strong rules of engagement."
Bush added that "if there is wrongdoing, people will be held to account," and said the nation has "a willingness to deal with issues like this in an upfront way and an open way and correct problems." _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
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