Homicide Charges Rare in Iraq War

In the days that followed, two different soldiers from the same unit, Sgt. Michael P. Williams and Spec. Brent May of the 3rd Platoon, went into two houses in Sadr City during a routine security sweep and shot two unarmed men, later arguing that they felt threatened. Williams and May were investigated for murder only after Lt. Erick Anderson, their platoon leader, forced the battalion's officers to start a probe.

Shortly after filing a report, Anderson was charged with murder.

"In the very beginning, no one wanted to do anything about it," said Anderson, 27, who has left active duty and is living in Kansas. "I think the officers didn't want to have the possibility of having themselves brought into it. They didn't want to go through the whole process."

Charges against Anderson ultimately were dropped, and he was promoted.

He said that during his tour there were many cases of slain Iraqi civilians that never drew scrutiny. "I think once people started seeing the reality of what can happen, when something did happen, they wanted to bury it," he said.

Williams pleaded guilty and was initially sentenced to life in prison, a sentence later reduced to 25 years. May was sentenced to five years.

Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in northern Iraq, said he always sought to address crimes as quickly as possible in order to maintain the trust of Iraqis.

"We created more enemies in Iraq than there were insurgents, and that's a geometric equation," Batiste said.

How Military Courts Work

To win a murder conviction, military prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused killed "without justification or excuse." But that is not always easy in a war zone.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice was enacted by Congress in 1950 partly to help make military trials more like civilian trials, with more procedural protections for the accused.

But there are key differences between a military criminal case and a civilian one. One of the most fundamental is that the initial decision to start a criminal investigation ultimately rests with the commander of the service member in question, who can order administrative or non-judicial punishments instead of courts-martial.

Critics of the military's processes in Iraq say the performance so far shows a need to change the decentralized decision-making structure. They argue that it creates the potential for improper "command influence" in favor of defendants by officers who don't want the embarrassment of criminal investigations of their subordinates.