By THOMAS WATKINS
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 30, 2007; 10:35 PM

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- A Marine testified Thursday that he saw a roomful of frightened women and children moments before they were killed by his squad mates in Haditha, Iraq, but he said he did not see who shot them.

Lance Cpl. Humberto Mendoza was the first witness at a hearing to determine whether Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 27, of Meriden, Conn., will face a court-martial on charges of murdering 17 civilians.

Wuterich had been charged with murdering 18 Iraqis in a bloody combat operation that left 24 civilians dead, but at the outset of Thursday's hearing prosecutors withdrew one murder count.

While the number of suspected murders makes Wuterich's case the biggest to have emerged against any U.S. service member to have served in Iraq, the hearing comes after a string of setbacks for Marine prosecutors.

The case centers on whether Wuterich, who had never experienced combat before, acted within Marine rules of engagement when he shot men by a car and then led his squad in a string of house raids.

Wuterich asserts that he was following combat rules and that he assaulted the houses because he thought gunfire was coming from them.

Mendoza described the events of Nov. 19, 2005, as being a fast-flowing series of engagements. After a Marine Humvee driver was killed in a roadside bomb, the troops raided several homes.

"When I opened the door, the first thing I see is womens and kids laying down on a bed," Mendoza, who is from Venezuela and has a heavy accent, recalled seeing in the second house he helped raid. "I believe they were scared."

Aerial footage from an unmanned drone shows that Marines were engaged in several other combat operations around Haditha that day. The Associated Press obtained the footage on Thursday.

Mendoza testified that he had shot an unarmed Iraqi man who opened the front door to the home, and that he shot a different man in another house who he thought was reaching for a weapon.

Mendoza said the killings were within combat rules because the occupants of the homes had been declared hostile.

Prosecutors called as a witness Capt. Kathryn Navin, a Marine lawyer who testified that she instructed Wuterich's company on rules of engagement in August 2005.

Navin said she taught Marines to have "knowledge to a reasonable certainty that the target you are engaging is a lawful military target," though she conceded there were occasions when positive identification of every individual in a military strike is not needed.

One of Wuterich's military defense attorneys, Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, said the government was no longer charging Wuterich with murdering an Iraqi man who died in the final house cleared by Marines.

The count was withdrawn after the general overseeing the case dismissed charges against another Marine accused of killing three other men in the same room of the house, ruling that they posed a legitimate threat, Vokey said.

Mendoza is one of several Marines granted immunity by prosecutors to testify. He claimed not to have seen Wuterich kill anyone in the two houses he helped clear with Wuterich.

"I think he's a great Marine, sir," Mendoza said when asked by a defense attorney what he thought of Wuterich.

Wuterich, who like all Marines in the court wore desert camouflage, sat with his tattooed arms folded on the table in front of him and appeared to be grinding his teeth.

Mendoza testified that he saw Wuterich open fire by the scene of the bomb blast before the house clearing began. Wuterich is accused of shooting five men who had pulled up in a car at the scene.

Again, Mendoza did not specify whether he saw Wuterich kill anyone.

The Article 32 hearing is similar to a grand jury probe, but the defense gets to cross-examine government witnesses.

At the end of the hearing, investigating officer Lt. Col. Paul Ware will recommend whether Wuterich should stand trial. Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the general overseeing the case, makes the final decision.

Wuterich faces a possible life sentence and dishonorable discharge if court-martialed.

Ware has already presided over two separate hearings in the case, when he listened to evidence against two of Wuterich's lance corporals _ Stephen Tatum and Justin Sharratt _ who were charged with murder. In both cases, Ware found prosecutors could not prove the Marines operated outside combat rules, and he recommended the charges be dismissed.

Prosecutors last year charged four enlisted Marines with murder and four officers with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the killings. Since then, charges against two of the enlisted Marines and one officer have been dropped.

Also Thursday, prosecutors announced two more counts of dereliction of duty against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest ranking of those charged. He was previously charged with two counts of dereliction of duty and one count of violation of a lawful order.

Chessani has already had an Article 32 hearing, in which the investigating officer recommended that he stand trial. No final decision has been made.