feluisak
22.03.06, 16:51
One Morning in Haditha
Last November, U.S. Marines killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes. Was it
self-defense, an accident or cold-blooded revenge?
The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy
that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq.
On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying
Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near
Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal
Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine
communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15
Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy
with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight
insurgents and wounding one other. The Marines from Kilo Company held a
memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages
like "T.J., you were a great friend. I'm going to miss seeing you around" on
smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.
But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing,
disputed and horrific than the military initially reported. According to
eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the
civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb
but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the
attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and
three children. Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true,
the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians
by U.S. service members since the war began.
In January, after Time presented military officials in Baghdad with the
Iraqis' accounts of the Marines' actions, the U.S. opened its own
investigation, interviewing 28 people, including the Marines, the families of
the victims and local doctors. According to military officials, the inquiry
acknowledged that, contrary to the military's initial report, the 15
civilians killed on Nov. 19 died at the hands of the Marines, not the
insurgents. The military announced last week that the matter has been handed
over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (ncis), which will conduct a
criminal investigation to determine whether the troops broke the laws of war
by deliberately targeting civilians. Lieut. Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing,
spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, told Time the involvement of
the ncis does not mean that a crime occurred. And she says the fault for the
civilian deaths lies squarely with the insurgents, who "placed noncombatants
in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves."
Because the incident is officially under investigation, members of the Marine
unit that was in Haditha on Nov. 19 are not allowed to speak with reporters.
But the military's own reconstruction of events and the accounts of town
residents interviewed by Time—including six whose family members were killed
that day—paint a picture of a devastatingly violent response by a group of
U.S. troops who had lost one of their own to a deadly insurgent attack and
believed they were under fire. Time obtained a videotape that purports to
show the aftermath of the Marines' assault and provides graphic documentation
of its human toll. What happened in Haditha is a reminder of the horrors
faced by civilians caught in the middle of war—and what war can do to the
people who fight it.
Here's what all participants agree on: at around 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, a U.S.
humvee was struck by a powerful improvised explosive device (ied) attached to
a large propane canister, triggered by remote control. The bomb killed
Terrazas, who was driving, and injured two other Marines. For U.S. troops,
Haditha, set among date-palm groves along the Euphrates River, was
inhospitable territory; every day the Marines found scores of bombs buried in
the dirt roads near their base. Eman Waleed, 9, lived in a house 150 yards
from the site of the blast, which was strong enough to shatter all the
windows in her home. "We heard a big noise that woke us all up," she recalls
two months later. "Then we did what we always do when there's an explosion:
my father goes into his room with the Koran and prays that the family will be
spared any harm." Eman says the rest of the family—her mother, grandfather,
grandmother, two brothers, two aunts and two uncles—gathered in the living
room. According to military officials familiar with the investigation, the
Marines say they came under fire from the direction of the Waleed house
immediately after being hit by the ied. A group of Marines headed toward the
house. Eman says she "heard a lot of shooting, so none of us went outside.
Besides, it was very early, and we were all wearing our nightclothes." When
the Marines entered the house, they were shouting in English. "First, they
went into my father's room, where he was reading the Koran," she claims, "and
we heard shots." According to Eman, the Marines then entered the living
room. "I couldn't see their faces very well—only their guns sticking into the
doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in
the head. Then they killed my granny." She claims the troops started firing
toward the corner of the room where she and her younger brother Abdul Rahman,
8, were hiding; the other adults shielded the children from the bullets but
died in the process. Eman says her leg was hit by a piece of metal and Abdul
Rahman was shot near his shoulder. "We were lying there, bleeding, and it
hurt so much. Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their
arms. I was crying, shouting 'Why did you do this to our family?' And one
Iraqi soldier tells me, 'We didn't do it. The Americans did.'" Time was
unable to speak with the only other survivor of the raid, Eman's younger
brother, who relatives say is traumatized by the experience. U.S. military
officials familiar with the investigation say that after entering the house,
the Marines walked into a corridor with closed doors on either side. They
thought they heard the clack-clack sound of an AK-47 being racked and readied
for fire. (Eman and relatives who were not in the house insist that no guns
were there.) Believing they were about to be ambushed, the Marines broke down
the two doors simultaneously and fired their weapons. The officials say the
military has confirmed that seven people were killed inside the house--
including two women and a child. The Marines also reported seeing a man and a
woman run out of the house; they gave chase and shot and killed the man.
Relatives say the woman, Hiba Abdullah, escaped with her baby.
According to military officials, the Marines say they then started taking
fire from the direction of a second house, prompting them to break down the
door of that house and throw in a grenade, blowing up a propane tank in the
kitchen. The Marines then began firing, killing eight residents—including the
owner, his wife, the owner's sister, a 2-year-old son and three young
daughters.
The Marines raided a third house, which belongs to a man named Ahmed Ayed.
One of Ahmed's five sons, Yousif, who lived in a house next door, told Time
that after hearing a prolonged burst of gunfire from his father's house, he
rushed over. Iraqi soldiers keeping watch in the garden prevented him from
going in. "They told me, 'There's nothing you can do. Don't come closer, or
the Americans will kill you too.' The Americans didn't let anybody into the
house until 6:30 the next morning." Ayed says that by then the bodies were
gone; all the de