.Four marines singled out in Iraq massacre investigation
A four-man team of United States Marines led the killing rampage in the Iraqi town of Haditha which resulted in the deaths of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, military investigators believe.
The troops went from house to house shooting their occupants after a roadside bomb killed one of their comrades, an internal US military report, which may be completed as early as this week, is expected to conclude. Some of the victims were killed, execution style, by shots to the head.
Shock at the full extent of the killing, reported by The Sunday Telegraph last weekend, has been compounded by photographs taken by a marine intelligence team which show bullet wounds to the upper bodies of the victims, who included several women and six children, some shot in the head and some in the back.
One US government official said the pictures showed that marines from Camp Pendleton "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results", according to yesterday's Los Angeles Times.
The sergeant who led the unit is suspected of filing a false report that downplayed the number of casualties and claimed they were killed by an insurgent's bomb. He also allegedly said that marines burst into homes in pursuit of locals firing at them.
The latest developments in the military investigation are fuelling fears in the Pentagon and White House that the US is facing a war crimes atrocity with chilling echoes of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when marines killed 500 villagers in a retaliation attack.
The timing of the revelations could not have been worse for Tony Blair and President George W Bush. As the two leaders met in Washington to hail the creation of a democratic government in Baghdad, US media reported that 12 marines may be prosecuted for the killings on November 19.
Insurgents have sent video tapes of the bullet-riddled corpses - including women and children - lined up in a local morgue to mosques in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to recruit new fighters for their jihad against American and British forces.
The investigation by a US general is almost complete. A separate inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service could lead to charges ranging from dereliction of duty to murder against the dozen men from the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. Investigators also want to establish whether a cover-up spread to higher ranks.
Three battalion commanders were relieved of their duties last month after a series of unspecified events, military officials said. There has been no suggestion, however, that they face disciplinary procedures for the Haditha killings.
Investigators believe that the marine unit went on the rampage after determining that the roadside bomb that killed a lance-corporal was set off by a "line-of-fire" device in nearby building.
Nineteen of the dead Iraqis were in three or four houses that marines stormed, officials said. Five others were apparently killed when their taxi came under a hail of fire.
A new Iraqi witness whose graphic account of the killings tallies with much of what is emerging from the US investigations described in yesterday's Washington Post how marines went from house to house massacring members of three families.
Aws Fahmi said that he heard one neighbour pleading in English for his life. Younis Khalif screamed: "I am a friend, I am good" before he, his wife and four daughters, aged one to 14, were shot, said Mr Fahmi, who was watching from a hiding place on his roof. Only Mr Khalif's 13-year-old daughter, Safa, survived.
Neighbours caring for the girl said she was saved as her mother's blood spread across her after she fainted in terror, leaving her looking dead. Safa said her mother died as she tried to protect her girls.
In a further public relations blow for the Bush administration, a general who served as a combat commander in Iraq told The Sunday Telegraph that Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, has squandered the lives of American soldiers by ignoring military advice on how to conduct the campaign.
Major Gen John Batiste, who resigned last year after 12 months stationed in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, said Mr Rumsfeld had caused "unnecessary deaths" by committing "strategic blunders of enormous magnitude".
His outspoken comments come as the US military death toll in Iraq approaches 2,500, and put him at the forefront of the chorus of six former generals who have called for Mr Rumsfeld to step down.
Gen Batiste has no intention of keeping quiet during his retirement. Instead, the former career soldier, who resigned after commanding 22,000 troops of the US Army's 1st Infantry Division, is planning a sustained public offensive aimed at driving Mr Rumsfeld from office.
The transformation of a once-loyal soldier into an outspoken rebel is a stark indicator of the growing disquiet at the heart of America's military establishment.
Gen Batiste, 53, alleges that Mr Rumsfeld not only went to war with too few troops, but then refused urgent pleas from commanders on the ground for more.
He says Mr Rumsfeld's "contemptuous, arrogant and dismissive attitude" led him to ignore military advice and hamstring ground commanders with troop shortages.
Telegraph
The troops went from house to house shooting their occupants after a roadside bomb killed one of their comrades, an internal US military report, which may be completed as early as this week, is expected to conclude. Some of the victims were killed, execution style, by shots to the head.
Shock at the full extent of the killing, reported by The Sunday Telegraph last weekend, has been compounded by photographs taken by a marine intelligence team which show bullet wounds to the upper bodies of the victims, who included several women and six children, some shot in the head and some in the back.
One US government official said the pictures showed that marines from Camp Pendleton "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results", according to yesterday's Los Angeles Times.
The sergeant who led the unit is suspected of filing a false report that downplayed the number of casualties and claimed they were killed by an insurgent's bomb. He also allegedly said that marines burst into homes in pursuit of locals firing at them.
The latest developments in the military investigation are fuelling fears in the Pentagon and White House that the US is facing a war crimes atrocity with chilling echoes of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when marines killed 500 villagers in a retaliation attack.
The timing of the revelations could not have been worse for Tony Blair and President George W Bush. As the two leaders met in Washington to hail the creation of a democratic government in Baghdad, US media reported that 12 marines may be prosecuted for the killings on November 19.
Insurgents have sent video tapes of the bullet-riddled corpses - including women and children - lined up in a local morgue to mosques in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to recruit new fighters for their jihad against American and British forces.
The investigation by a US general is almost complete. A separate inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service could lead to charges ranging from dereliction of duty to murder against the dozen men from the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. Investigators also want to establish whether a cover-up spread to higher ranks.
Three battalion commanders were relieved of their duties last month after a series of unspecified events, military officials said. There has been no suggestion, however, that they face disciplinary procedures for the Haditha killings.
Investigators believe that the marine unit went on the rampage after determining that the roadside bomb that killed a lance-corporal was set off by a "line-of-fire" device in nearby building.
Nineteen of the dead Iraqis were in three or four houses that marines stormed, officials said. Five others were apparently killed when their taxi came under a hail of fire.
A new Iraqi witness whose graphic account of the killings tallies with much of what is emerging from the US investigations described in yesterday's Washington Post how marines went from house to house massacring members of three families.
Aws Fahmi said that he heard one neighbour pleading in English for his life. Younis Khalif screamed: "I am a friend, I am good" before he, his wife and four daughters, aged one to 14, were shot, said Mr Fahmi, who was watching from a hiding place on his roof. Only Mr Khalif's 13-year-old daughter, Safa, survived.
Neighbours caring for the girl said she was saved as her mother's blood spread across her after she fainted in terror, leaving her looking dead. Safa said her mother died as she tried to protect her girls.
In a further public relations blow for the Bush administration, a general who served as a combat commander in Iraq told The Sunday Telegraph that Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, has squandered the lives of American soldiers by ignoring military advice on how to conduct the campaign.
Major Gen John Batiste, who resigned last year after 12 months stationed in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, said Mr Rumsfeld had caused "unnecessary deaths" by committing "strategic blunders of enormous magnitude".
His outspoken comments come as the US military death toll in Iraq approaches 2,500, and put him at the forefront of the chorus of six former generals who have called for Mr Rumsfeld to step down.
Gen Batiste has no intention of keeping quiet during his retirement. Instead, the former career soldier, who resigned after commanding 22,000 troops of the US Army's 1st Infantry Division, is planning a sustained public offensive aimed at driving Mr Rumsfeld from office.
The transformation of a once-loyal soldier into an outspoken rebel is a stark indicator of the growing disquiet at the heart of America's military establishment.
Gen Batiste, 53, alleges that Mr Rumsfeld not only went to war with too few troops, but then refused urgent pleas from commanders on the ground for more.
He says Mr Rumsfeld's "contemptuous, arrogant and dismissive attitude" led him to ignore military advice and hamstring ground commanders with troop shortages.
Telegraph
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