Haditha Deaths Raised No Red Flags
General Echoes Earlier Testimony

By Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 11, 2007

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 10 -- A two-star general testified Thursday that he learned almost immediately that Marines under his command had killed at least 15 civilians -- including women and children -- in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005 but that he did not believe the incident merited an investigation.

Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck was the latest of several witnesses in a military hearing at Camp Pendleton this week to say the deaths of Iraqi bystanders in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, were widely known but did not raise concerns.

Reports of the killings went up and down the chain of command, said Huck, who led the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq at the time. Yet no one -- from the company commander to Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then commander of multinational forces in Iraq -- indicated they wanted a preliminary inquiry into why so many civilians had died.

Based on the reports he had received, Huck said, "in my mind's eye I saw insurgent fire, I saw Kilo [Company] fire, and I saw Iraqi security forces fire. I could see how 15 neutrals in those circumstances could have been killed."

Twenty-four civilians were killed when members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment reacted to a makeshift bomb hitting their convoy in the early morning hours, killing one serviceman and wounding two. An investigation found that Marines shot five men who stepped out of a nearby taxi and four men who were rounded up in a local house. The rest of the dead, mostly women and children, were killed in nearby homes by grenades and gunfire from Marines.

Three enlisted Marines have since been charged with murder, and four officers are charged with failing to investigate the deaths. Huck's testimony, by videoconference from the Pentagon, came in an Article 32 hearing, similar to a grand jury proceeding, for one of the officers, Capt. Randy W. Stone.

The Marines charged with murder have said they were following the rules of engagement. Attorneys for the Marines charged with failing to investigate have said they did not violate any military rules and were not trying to hide the incident. Huck testified that any number of Marines who knew about the deaths could have requested an investigation.

But typically, "the requests for an investigation didn't travel up the chain of command," Capt. Timothy R. Strabbing, another officer in the battalion testified Thursday. "It came from higher, down."

The officers first discussed the possibility of investigating the deaths at Haditha after a Time magazine correspondent sent an e-mail with questions in January 2005, the executive officer for Kilo Company, 1st Lt. Adam P. Mathis, testified.

Mathis said that in response to one of the questions Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the battalion commander, answered: "No, there is no reason to do an investigation. This was a bona fide combat action." Chessani is charged with failing to investigate and dereliction of duty.

The bar for an investigation was not high, witnesses said. Officers investigated injuries to Marines, negligent discharges of weapons, missing equipment and other procedural violations.

In conversations officers had about the deaths at Haditha, "the point of view was, we've seen the extent that the enemy's willing to go to," Mathis said. "The events of Nov. 19 was a demonstration of how cheap they considered human lives, that they would conduct attacks from a populated area."

Thursday's testimony appeared to support the findings of a report by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell that was obtained by The Washington Post last month. After investigating the events at Haditha, Bargewell wrote, "All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics."