Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 11, 2007
By Paul von Zielbauer
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 10 — The general who led a division in charge of the marines who killed 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 testified Thursday that he was kept from weighing accusations that the killings were illegal because his subordinate officers withheld information for nearly three months.
The officer, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the Second Marine Division commander in Iraq at the time, testified in a military hearing here that he had learned that women and children had been killed within hours of the attack, on Nov. 19, 2005.
But he said he had believed that the deaths were the unfortunate but unavoidable result of combat with Sunni Arab insurgents.
General Huck said he had not learned until February 2006 about inquiries into the deaths by Time magazine because his own chief of staff and regimental commander kept him in the dark.
The chief of staff, Col. R. Gary Sokoloski, and the regimental commander, Col. Stephen W. Davis, had learned of the Time reporter’s questions in late January 2006, General Huck testified. But, he said, they and all the other officers in his chain of command failed to tell him.
“It had been alive for three weeks without my being aware of it,” General Huck said of Time’s inquiry.
General Huck testified on the third day of a hearing for one of four marine officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate properly the civilian killings. Three enlisted men are charged with their murders.
General Huck said he had first become aware of accusations that the civilians were unjustly killed when his superior, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the day-to-day commander in Iraq at the time, sent him an e-mail message on Feb. 12 to ask what he knew about the reporter’s inquiry.
General Huck said he was “pretty irritated” with Colonel Sokoloski for not telling him earlier about the reporter’s questions. “What am I, the last guy to find out in this organization?” he said he had asked Colonel Sokoloski the morning after receiving the e-mail message.
General Huck said that until he received the message, he had never considered the killings a violation of any kind because they had occurred during a combat operation and it was not uncommon for civilians to die in such circumstances.
“In my mind’s eye, I saw insurgent fire, I saw Kilo Company fire,” General Huck testified, via video link from the Pentagon, where he is assistant deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations. “I could see how 15 neutrals in those circumstances could be killed.”
General Huck said he had made a list of all the officers and enlisted men who could have reported the Haditha killings as a possible law of war violation but did not. They ranged from senior officers to sergeants and radio operators who heard reports from the field that day.
Fielding questions from lawyers for Capt. Randy W. Stone, a battalion lawyer charged with failing to investigate the deaths, General Huck gave what seemed to be contradictory answers about whether he should have investigated the deaths, given what he knew at the time.
For instance, he said he had learned within hours of the episode that women and children had been killed, and acknowledged that his own rules required investigation when a “significant” number of civilians died in actions involving marines. But later he said he saw no reason to look into how a “big” number of civilians had died in Haditha.
General Huck pointed out that his superiors — including General Chiarelli and his predecessor, and Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the top Marine commander in Iraq at the time — had received many of the field reports about the Haditha civilian deaths that he had received, and that none had opened an inquiry until the Time reporter, Tim McGirk, started asking questions.
Statements from General Huck’s bosses in Iraq at the time seem to confirm his testimony.
General Johnson, for instance, told military investigators looking into how the chain of command had responded to the Haditha episode that he had been more concerned at the time about the enemy’s use of a lethal roadside bomb — known as an improvised explosive device, or I.E.D. — than about the civilians who died that day.
“In my way of thinking as the commander, at that point in our time in Iraq, 15 people killed as a result of an attack, in a built-up area that involved I.E.D.’s and a coordinated attack, I still think that probably my reaction was, ‘That’s too bad, but they got caught somehow,’ ” General Johnson told investigators in a sworn statement obtained by The New York Times from someone familiar with the case.
“Our thought process would have been that, ‘Hey, if the enemy hadn’t done it, those people wouldn’t have got killed.’ ”
But as Thursday’s other main witness testified, the reporter’s questions seemed to provoke far more disdain — for the reporter and for Haditha’s civilian leaders — than curiosity about whether the marines had done anything wrong that morning.
The day’s first witness, First Lt. Adam P. Mathes, the Company K executive officer at the time, said he and the battalion commander and the battalion executive officer had collectively dismissed Mr. McGirk’s questions because they had considered them “sensational” and politically motivated.
“The questions were questionable,” Lieutenant Mathes said, testifying by video link from Kuwait, where he is stationed. “It sounded like bad, negative spin. We tried to weed out the grievances that Mr. McGirk had against the Bush administration.”
He said Mr. McGirk had seemed to have an antiwar agenda. “This guy is looking for blood,” Lieutenant Mathis testified, “because blood leads headlines.”
May 11, 2007
By Paul von Zielbauer
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 10 — The general who led a division in charge of the marines who killed 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 testified Thursday that he was kept from weighing accusations that the killings were illegal because his subordinate officers withheld information for nearly three months.
The officer, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the Second Marine Division commander in Iraq at the time, testified in a military hearing here that he had learned that women and children had been killed within hours of the attack, on Nov. 19, 2005.
But he said he had believed that the deaths were the unfortunate but unavoidable result of combat with Sunni Arab insurgents.
General Huck said he had not learned until February 2006 about inquiries into the deaths by Time magazine because his own chief of staff and regimental commander kept him in the dark.
The chief of staff, Col. R. Gary Sokoloski, and the regimental commander, Col. Stephen W. Davis, had learned of the Time reporter’s questions in late January 2006, General Huck testified. But, he said, they and all the other officers in his chain of command failed to tell him.
“It had been alive for three weeks without my being aware of it,” General Huck said of Time’s inquiry.
General Huck testified on the third day of a hearing for one of four marine officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate properly the civilian killings. Three enlisted men are charged with their murders.
General Huck said he had first become aware of accusations that the civilians were unjustly killed when his superior, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the day-to-day commander in Iraq at the time, sent him an e-mail message on Feb. 12 to ask what he knew about the reporter’s inquiry.
General Huck said he was “pretty irritated” with Colonel Sokoloski for not telling him earlier about the reporter’s questions. “What am I, the last guy to find out in this organization?” he said he had asked Colonel Sokoloski the morning after receiving the e-mail message.
General Huck said that until he received the message, he had never considered the killings a violation of any kind because they had occurred during a combat operation and it was not uncommon for civilians to die in such circumstances.
“In my mind’s eye, I saw insurgent fire, I saw Kilo Company fire,” General Huck testified, via video link from the Pentagon, where he is assistant deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations. “I could see how 15 neutrals in those circumstances could be killed.”
General Huck said he had made a list of all the officers and enlisted men who could have reported the Haditha killings as a possible law of war violation but did not. They ranged from senior officers to sergeants and radio operators who heard reports from the field that day.
Fielding questions from lawyers for Capt. Randy W. Stone, a battalion lawyer charged with failing to investigate the deaths, General Huck gave what seemed to be contradictory answers about whether he should have investigated the deaths, given what he knew at the time.
For instance, he said he had learned within hours of the episode that women and children had been killed, and acknowledged that his own rules required investigation when a “significant” number of civilians died in actions involving marines. But later he said he saw no reason to look into how a “big” number of civilians had died in Haditha.
General Huck pointed out that his superiors — including General Chiarelli and his predecessor, and Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the top Marine commander in Iraq at the time — had received many of the field reports about the Haditha civilian deaths that he had received, and that none had opened an inquiry until the Time reporter, Tim McGirk, started asking questions.
Statements from General Huck’s bosses in Iraq at the time seem to confirm his testimony.
General Johnson, for instance, told military investigators looking into how the chain of command had responded to the Haditha episode that he had been more concerned at the time about the enemy’s use of a lethal roadside bomb — known as an improvised explosive device, or I.E.D. — than about the civilians who died that day.
“In my way of thinking as the commander, at that point in our time in Iraq, 15 people killed as a result of an attack, in a built-up area that involved I.E.D.’s and a coordinated attack, I still think that probably my reaction was, ‘That’s too bad, but they got caught somehow,’ ” General Johnson told investigators in a sworn statement obtained by The New York Times from someone familiar with the case.
“Our thought process would have been that, ‘Hey, if the enemy hadn’t done it, those people wouldn’t have got killed.’ ”
But as Thursday’s other main witness testified, the reporter’s questions seemed to provoke far more disdain — for the reporter and for Haditha’s civilian leaders — than curiosity about whether the marines had done anything wrong that morning.
The day’s first witness, First Lt. Adam P. Mathes, the Company K executive officer at the time, said he and the battalion commander and the battalion executive officer had collectively dismissed Mr. McGirk’s questions because they had considered them “sensational” and politically motivated.
“The questions were questionable,” Lieutenant Mathes said, testifying by video link from Kuwait, where he is stationed. “It sounded like bad, negative spin. We tried to weed out the grievances that Mr. McGirk had against the Bush administration.”
He said Mr. McGirk had seemed to have an antiwar agenda. “This guy is looking for blood,” Lieutenant Mathis testified, “because blood leads headlines.”