.Inquiry Into Iraq Killings Focuses on Supervision of Soldiers
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 4 — The military investigation of soldiers suspected of raping an Iraqi woman and killing her and her family is looking at whether poor oversight within the soldiers' unit helped give them the chance to operate on their own, American military officials said Tuesday.
Specifically, investigators are examining whether procedural lapses in how the unit handled convoys and traffic checkpoints gave the soldiers leeway to operate too independently outside their base, the officials said.
The procedures will be given a "top-down scrub," one of the officials added. This broad approach to the investigation leaves open the possibility that senior officers in the unit, the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, may be implicated later.
At least four soldiers are already being investigated, including a recently discharged man, Steven D. Green, 21, who had been a private. He was arrested in North Carolina on Monday and charged with rape and the murders of four Iraqis on March 12 in a farming area around Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Investigators say they believe that Mr. Green was the ringleader, a military official said Tuesday.
In the hours before the deaths, the soldiers were stationed at a traffic control point about 600 feet from the victims' home, apparently operating with just a single vehicle, according to an American military official and a federal affidavit filed by prosecutors on Monday.
That violates military regulations here. Because of the dangers of Iraq, it is virtually unheard of for a military vehicle to be allowed to leave an American base without being accompanied by at least one other. So a central question is: how were these soldiers able to get out and operate on their own, presumably in a Humvee?
The same issue is under scrutiny in an investigation into the deaths of three soldiers from the same unit last month. Those soldiers were traveling in a single vehicle in the area of Yusufiya, an insurgent stronghold near Mahmudiya, when they were ambushed by guerrillas, military officials have said.
One was killed on the spot and the others abducted; the mutilated bodies of the kidnapped men were found days later along a road booby-trapped with bombs.
American officials say they were from the same platoon of the 502nd Infantry as the soldiers under suspicion for the rape and murders in March. In fact, senior officers first learned of the crime when a soldier stationed at the traffic checkpoint on March 12 talked about it in a counseling session after the two mutilated bodies were discovered, the affidavit says.
So far, investigators have not drawn a direct link between the crime and the Yusufiya ambush.
Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, the commander of the Fourth Infantry Division, to which the 502nd Infantry is attached for this tour, ordered the investigation.
"We do not as a rule travel as a single-vehicle convoy," said a military official who, like other officials, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.
The official said investigators were focusing on procedures in the 502nd, not within the entire Fourth Infantry Division. The 502nd is a traditional title for the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division.
Mr. Green and the other soldiers are suspected of involvement in raping the Iraqi woman and killing her, her younger sister and their mother and father. The mayor of Mahmudiya has said the rape victim, Abeer Qasem Hamzeh, was only 15, and had multiple bullet wounds and burn marks. The soldiers are suspected of trying to burn her body to cover up the crime and then setting the house on fire.
For a year and a half before he went into the Army, Mr. Green lived with his father, John Green, in an apartment in Midland, Tex., according to a neighbor there, Albert Rodriguez. Mr. Green, he said, was "a normal kid; he didn't look like he would hurt a fly." Mr. Rodriguez added that the young man seemed "more like a follower than a leader."
The Iraqi justice minister, Hashim al-Shibli, said in an interview on Tuesday on Al Arabiya television that the United Nations should ensure the soldiers are properly punished.
Shortly after the murders, three Iraqi men approached another American traffic checkpoint in the area and told the soldiers that an Iraqi family had been killed in their home, the affidavit says.
"It was originally believed that anti-Iraqi forces or other entities committed the offense," the document says, using the military's term for insurgents.
The Mahmudiya area is one of the most volatile places in Iraq, with a constellation of armed groups vying for dominance. It would not have been unusual for Iraqis discovering the bodies to assume that other Iraqis had committed the crime rather than Americans.
Maj. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for the American command, said in a telephone interview that the three other soldiers implicated in the investigation, whose names have not been released, were confined to base and had not been charged yet.
The affidavit says four soldiers, including Mr. Green, took part in violence at the house, while a fifth was told to stay at the vehicle to monitor the radio. Mr. Green and one other soldier took part in the rape, the document says. All four had been drinking beforehand, according to the document.
The American military announced the investigation last week, but reaction among Iraqis has been muted. The kind of outrage that accompanied the Abu Ghraib scandal is almost nowhere to be seen.
The inquiry into the possible executions of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha by marines has also brought the same lukewarm response. More than three years into the war, many Iraqis say they are no longer surprised by abuses on the part of American troops. Iraqis seem more concerned these days about spiraling sectarian violence.
But there were some, like the justice minister, Mr. Shibli, who called for retribution on behalf of the victims in Mahmudiya.
"The American soldiers violated everything," said Omar al-Jubouri, the human rights officer for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading Sunni Arab political group.
"All the trials conducted by the Americans have so far been theater," he added. "We demand they impose punishments that will prevent such crimes."
NYT
Specifically, investigators are examining whether procedural lapses in how the unit handled convoys and traffic checkpoints gave the soldiers leeway to operate too independently outside their base, the officials said.
The procedures will be given a "top-down scrub," one of the officials added. This broad approach to the investigation leaves open the possibility that senior officers in the unit, the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, may be implicated later.
At least four soldiers are already being investigated, including a recently discharged man, Steven D. Green, 21, who had been a private. He was arrested in North Carolina on Monday and charged with rape and the murders of four Iraqis on March 12 in a farming area around Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Investigators say they believe that Mr. Green was the ringleader, a military official said Tuesday.
In the hours before the deaths, the soldiers were stationed at a traffic control point about 600 feet from the victims' home, apparently operating with just a single vehicle, according to an American military official and a federal affidavit filed by prosecutors on Monday.
That violates military regulations here. Because of the dangers of Iraq, it is virtually unheard of for a military vehicle to be allowed to leave an American base without being accompanied by at least one other. So a central question is: how were these soldiers able to get out and operate on their own, presumably in a Humvee?
The same issue is under scrutiny in an investigation into the deaths of three soldiers from the same unit last month. Those soldiers were traveling in a single vehicle in the area of Yusufiya, an insurgent stronghold near Mahmudiya, when they were ambushed by guerrillas, military officials have said.
One was killed on the spot and the others abducted; the mutilated bodies of the kidnapped men were found days later along a road booby-trapped with bombs.
American officials say they were from the same platoon of the 502nd Infantry as the soldiers under suspicion for the rape and murders in March. In fact, senior officers first learned of the crime when a soldier stationed at the traffic checkpoint on March 12 talked about it in a counseling session after the two mutilated bodies were discovered, the affidavit says.
So far, investigators have not drawn a direct link between the crime and the Yusufiya ambush.
Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, the commander of the Fourth Infantry Division, to which the 502nd Infantry is attached for this tour, ordered the investigation.
"We do not as a rule travel as a single-vehicle convoy," said a military official who, like other officials, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.
The official said investigators were focusing on procedures in the 502nd, not within the entire Fourth Infantry Division. The 502nd is a traditional title for the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division.
Mr. Green and the other soldiers are suspected of involvement in raping the Iraqi woman and killing her, her younger sister and their mother and father. The mayor of Mahmudiya has said the rape victim, Abeer Qasem Hamzeh, was only 15, and had multiple bullet wounds and burn marks. The soldiers are suspected of trying to burn her body to cover up the crime and then setting the house on fire.
For a year and a half before he went into the Army, Mr. Green lived with his father, John Green, in an apartment in Midland, Tex., according to a neighbor there, Albert Rodriguez. Mr. Green, he said, was "a normal kid; he didn't look like he would hurt a fly." Mr. Rodriguez added that the young man seemed "more like a follower than a leader."
The Iraqi justice minister, Hashim al-Shibli, said in an interview on Tuesday on Al Arabiya television that the United Nations should ensure the soldiers are properly punished.
Shortly after the murders, three Iraqi men approached another American traffic checkpoint in the area and told the soldiers that an Iraqi family had been killed in their home, the affidavit says.
"It was originally believed that anti-Iraqi forces or other entities committed the offense," the document says, using the military's term for insurgents.
The Mahmudiya area is one of the most volatile places in Iraq, with a constellation of armed groups vying for dominance. It would not have been unusual for Iraqis discovering the bodies to assume that other Iraqis had committed the crime rather than Americans.
Maj. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for the American command, said in a telephone interview that the three other soldiers implicated in the investigation, whose names have not been released, were confined to base and had not been charged yet.
The affidavit says four soldiers, including Mr. Green, took part in violence at the house, while a fifth was told to stay at the vehicle to monitor the radio. Mr. Green and one other soldier took part in the rape, the document says. All four had been drinking beforehand, according to the document.
The American military announced the investigation last week, but reaction among Iraqis has been muted. The kind of outrage that accompanied the Abu Ghraib scandal is almost nowhere to be seen.
The inquiry into the possible executions of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha by marines has also brought the same lukewarm response. More than three years into the war, many Iraqis say they are no longer surprised by abuses on the part of American troops. Iraqis seem more concerned these days about spiraling sectarian violence.
But there were some, like the justice minister, Mr. Shibli, who called for retribution on behalf of the victims in Mahmudiya.
"The American soldiers violated everything," said Omar al-Jubouri, the human rights officer for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading Sunni Arab political group.
"All the trials conducted by the Americans have so far been theater," he added. "We demand they impose punishments that will prevent such crimes."
NYT
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