And Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free
The word Haditha is soon becoming a verb from its present location in the English language as a noun. Whenever the atrocities of the Occupation Forces were being highlighted in the Arab and Non Arab media, the immediate reaction of some self righteous individuals has been to dismiss the charges on the grounds that "we are too civilised to do all that". "Our Marines are too benign to indulge in such acts". "Our Governemnt is too upright not to indulge in cover ups" etc etc. The fact s are that the USA invaded Iraq without any reason on the pretext of the Weapons of Mass Destruction and having conquered the country tried its hand at setting the Sunnis an\gainst the Shiaas and the result is a full blown Insurgency which has careened out of control. Somewhere along the way are the inconvienient details of Abu Gahraib I and II, the use of Cluster Bombs on civilian targets, the wilfull destruction of a whole city-- Fallujah-- in the name of pacification and now Haditha. This catalogue of horrors can go on, but we owe it to the innocent dead to pause and reflect on Haditha and what it represents.
On November 19, 2005 a Marine outfit known as the Kilo Company belonging to the 3rd Battalion of the Ist Regiment was on patrol on the streets of Haditha. The policy of Rumsfeltf of not rotating the troops has been a factor since many of the marines were on their 3rd tour of duty in Iraq. Haditha is a small farming village/town along the banks of the Euphrates and is located 200 km north of the Capital. Though not part of the infamous Sunni Triangle, Haditha has become a centre of the insurgency against the occupying forces and here both the Sunnis and Shiaas have more or less a joint front. The flat mud roofed houses do not afford much protection. Of course, as in any Insurgency, there are attacks on the US forces. This Kilo Company had already acquired a degree of notoriety for its earlier counter insurgency.
Around 7:30 in the morning a bomb exploded on a street that was being patrolled by US marines in 5 humvees. All these humvees have had their undercarriage/chasis reinforced by armour plating. However, the Iraqi Insurgents use an IED which uses the conventional anti tank shell and is modified by the use of a pressure detonating device which means that when the vibrations of the approaching convoy reached the IED its charge is activated and its timer is usually set to blow up after 60 to 75 seconds. Most of the American casualities have been as a result of the IEDs. In societies which have turned against the invader such planning cannot take place without the approval/tacit support of the population. Afterall did not the Great Helmsman say that "insurgents are like fish in water".
The explosion killed one marine on the spot and injured several. What happened next is the stuff horrors are made of. The marine Terrazas was the one killed. A taxi cruising nearby was the first tatget. The Kilo Company opened fire and killed 5 young men in the taxi. The story put out by the Marines aftwer the Hadirah Massacre was that the young men in the taxi triggered the explosion. In the previous paragraph I have explained the mechanism of such IEDs. so the young men travelling in the Taxi were absolutely innocent.
After killing the young men in the car the Marines divided into two groups one went on a rampage while the other stood by and watched and helped in the cleanup and coverup that followed. The photos submitted by the marines do not show any of the dodies that bore the marks of bullet injuries. Only the buildings and the damaged humvees were shown. However, an amateur photographer took video rtecordings of the entire episode which has clearly brought out the fact of the cold blodded killings.One marine from the silent group took out his digital cameram and took some pictures and it is not clear whether these pictures were seen by the superior officers.
The Marines then put out the story that after the IED explosion there was firing from the roof tops. The houses in that part of Iraq as I have stated earlier are flat roofed and do not provide any protection. The local population has testified that the only firing wwas from the side of the Marine Unit.
The Kilo Company moved into 4 homes and a total of 24 men, women and choldren were shot in cold blood. Not a single one of then was a terrorist or even a militant insurgent. In fact the initial reaction of the higher ups in the US military when confronted with the facts of the Haditha Incident was to dismiss it as Al Qaeda Propaganda. The US Department of Defence now claims that it learnt about this Massacre only in Febuary 2006. Like in the case of the Abu Gharaib Affair, the attempt that is now being made is to fix the responsiblity for the Massacre on some junior officers and men and procalim that the political leadership was not complicit in the acrime. If this be the case then how come Saddam Hussain is being teied for war crimes when in fact he ordered only the excecution of the prisoners after due process. The Haditha Massacre has compromised US ability to hand out any punishment to Saddam because the conduct in the post Saddam period in not different from what existed earlier.
Now the coverup. The higherup in the Marine Command knew about the Haditha Massacre and decided to falsify the facts in order to make the whole thing seem like a fire fight with the Insurgents and the death of the civilians be passed off, yes, as "collateral damage". The Kilo Comany could not expalin why the young men in the car had no weapons if indeed they had been firing at them. They could not expain why the bullet injuries on the corpses of the victims were so suspiciously similar. The contradictions began to mount and then the politicians like Rep Jack Murtha started demanding justice for the victims.
The world is watching.