BAGHDAD -- Members of the U.S. Army's 41st Regiment uncovered an AK-47 during a routine search in the dangerous Baghdad slum of Sadr City on Aug. 31. Finding a weapon was not unusual, but Sgt. Michael P. Williams, 25, said he felt danger when he saw a smirking Iraqi man in the house where the gun was found, according to the testimony of fellow soldiers.
"I feel threatened," Williams declared, the soldiers recalled. The "Iraqi went for his weapon."
Moments later, Williams shot the Iraqi man with two bullets to his head and chest, according to testimony last Friday at a military hearing, known as an Article 32 proceeding, intended to decide whether Williams would face court-martial in the killing. Other members of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 41st Regiment, said the Iraqi did not have a weapon.
Williams's hearing, in a crowded meeting room on a military base in Baghdad, focused on one of a number of murder cases involving U.S. forces. Such hearings shed light on the conduct and leadership of American troops, as well as the rules of engagement they are supposed to abide by in Iraq, where armed conflict has gone on longer and in more treacherous settings than Pentagon planners initially anticipated.
On Friday, one member of Williams's unit, Staff Sgt. Johnny M. Horne Jr., sat weeping in an improvised courtroom not far from the Williams hearing. He pleaded guilty and later was sentenced to three years in prison for shooting a gravely wounded teenager on Aug. 18.
Two other members of Charlie Company face murder charges arising from incidents in the warren of narrow lanes and squalid homes of Sadr City. In addition, at the regiment's headquarters in Fort Riley, Kan., two members of the 41st face charges of first-degree murder in the killings of two fellow soldiers.
Analysts say such cases raise important questions.
"Any time you have multiple serious offenses in a single unit you immediately think about the leadership of that unit," said Gary Solis, a former Marine officer who teaches the law of war at West Point. "Obviously that doesn't go to the crimes themselves, but as I say in class all the time, 'Why should you observe the law of war, lieutenant?'
"Because the best-led units don't commit war crimes.' "
The charges against Charlie Company involved actions taken during two days in August at a particularly dangerous time for U.S. forces. Three U.S. battalions spent most of the month retaking the holy city of Najaf, about 90 miles south of Baghdad, from the Mahdi Army militia of a Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr. In eastern Baghdad, other U.S. forces were grinding down the militia in its urban base, exchanging fire in Sadr City each night.
Most of the victims in Sadr City are nameless, identified in court papers and testimony as "Iraqi nationals." Qasim Hassan, the only individual named in testimony, was identified by a newspaper investigating the circumstances of his death.
Hassan was riding in the back of a garbage truck that was mistakenly identified as an insurgent vehicle. It was ripped to bits by two Charlie Company units. After the incident, it was determined that the truck was operated by a businessman and was assigned to clean the street.
Still unidentified are three other victims: an Iraqi man cut down near the garbage truck while waving what appeared to be a white flag; the man Williams allegedly shot at point-blank range; and another unarmed man allegedly killed by a soldier who asked Williams excitedly, "Can I shoot this one?"
By the early morning of Aug. 18, much of Charlie Company had been up for most of four days. Horne, a sturdily built North Carolina native, was in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle overlooking an avenue on which U.S. forces were planning to launch an attack.
