Documentary examines Haditha case

[thedrifter]

Documentary examines Haditha case


By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer
Frontline's 'Rules of Engagement' set for broadcast this evening

The writer and producer of a documentary on the killing of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha by a group of Camp Pendleton Marines more than two years ago said Monday the work highlights the instantaneous decisions troops often face.

Arun Rath spent months working on the Frontline report "Rules of Engagement" that will be broadcast by KPBS at 10 this evening.

"I hope the viewer comes away with a better understanding of just how complicated the battlefield is," Rath said in a telephone interview. "They are asked to weigh a lot of things and have to make a very difficult calculation in a split second."

The broadcast comes as trials by military courts-martial near for two of the Marines charged with manslaughter and for two officers accused of wrongdoing in the aftermath of the killings.

Rath said he believes much of the American public still views the incident as a massacre of civilians, in part because that was the label applied by U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. It was the view he said he shared based on initial media reports.

"My own impressions have since changed quite a bit," Rath said. "As I got into the case, I saw it was a lot more complicated and it showed me how difficult the job is for the young men on the ground."

The killings came as a squad of Kilo Company Marines led by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich searched for those responsible for a roadside bombing that destroyed a Humvee and killed a lance corporal on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005. The troops were from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

Five men who emerged from a car that drove up to Wuterich and his men moments after the bombing were the first to die, killed because the Marines believed they were insurgents, according to testimony during pre-trial hearings.

A subsequent search by the Marines of nearby homes led to the 19 other deaths, including several woman and children. None of the dead were later confirmed to have been insurgents.

Originally charged with murder, Wuterich now faces nine counts of voluntary manslaughter and related charges when he goes to trial on March 3. Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum faces two counts of involuntary manslaughter when his trial begins in late April.

Two other enlisted men originally charged with murder have since had their cases dismissed.

Two of the four officers charged by the Marine Corps along with the enlisted men in December 2006 also have seen the accusations against them withdrawn.

In preparation for the film, a Frontline reporter embedded with Kilo Company Marines in Iraq in 2007.

In one of the interviews conducted during that time, Lt. Alex Martin tells a reporter what the troops often confront.

"He is the judge and juror in that split second," Martin says. "And that's the moral authority these young men have."

For more information on the Frontline report, see the Web site www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/

-- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

February 19, 2008
Television Review
A Violent Act Takes Shape When Seen Through Time
By NEIL GENZLINGER

What is it that makes “Rules of Engagement,” Tuesday night’s “Frontline” offering on PBS, one of the more riveting recent installments of the program?

There’s timeliness, for one thing. The program examines the killings of civilians in Haditha, Iraq, by American marines in November 2005 just as courts-martial for two of those marines are about to begin.

There is also the technical skill of Arun Rath, who produced, wrote and directed. Though the killings have by now received plenty of news coverage, Mr. Rath knows that a story like this is most powerfully told from the beginning.

He rolls it out slowly, like a Jack Olsen true-crime book: the deployment of marines to secure the town, a suspected insurgent stronghold; the eerie silence that greeted them in the first weeks; the growing sense that an attack was coming. When the attack does come, on Nov. 19, you can feel how jittery the soldiers must have been, and thus all the more susceptible to overreaction.

What really makes the program absorbing, though, is that through interviews with, and transcripts of, the participants, you are struck by just how ordinary these much-vilified, much-defended warriors are. You feel for the Iraqis who died, of course — 15 civilians in initial estimates, a figure that eventually rose to 24. But you also are reminded, in case you had forgotten, that the Americans actually doing the work of warfare in Iraq are young, inexperienced, overwhelmed.

“I went in and followed my training, firing in my sector,” Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, one of those now facing charges, says, describing how his unit cleared a house near where a roadside bomb had just killed one marine. “The visibility was horrible. There was dust and smoke. I really couldn’t make out more than targets.”

It’s awful and shameful that some of these “targets” turned out to be women and children, but with the perspective provided by this report, it’s also not surprising.


FRONTLINE

Rules of Engagement

On most PBS stations on Tuesday night (check local listings).

Written, produced and directed by Arun Rath; WGBH Boston, series producer; Raney Aronson, senior producer; David Fanning, Frontline executive producer. Produced by Frontline with Yellow River Productions.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

ESSAY
'Frontline' looks at the Haditha incident
A documentary tries to get to the truth of the killing of 24 Iraqis by Marines in 2005.
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 19, 2008

HADITHA, Iraq -- When the long history of what military leaders are beginning to call the Long War in Iraq is written, the events in a dusty, tumbledown city hard upon the Euphrates River called Haditha will probably serve as a Rorschach test.

By nearly everyone's lights, the degradation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an outrage and a monumental setback to the U.S.-led mission of winning over the Iraqi people.

But Haditha, where 24 civilians were killed by Marines as they "cleared" the street and houses near where a roadside bomb had just killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, is open to myriad interpretations. Into this maelstrom comes a "Frontline" documentary, "Rules of Engagement," that tries to get to the truth about that chaotic morning two years ago.

Pick your viewpoint about the war, about the U.S. military, about the media, and there is something in Haditha, the media coverage, the military investigations and the trials to back it up.

The killings at Haditha were the result of untested, immature leadership that gave tragically imprecise orders to young troops? Check.

The killings at Haditha were the result of a morally brutalizing war in which decent young men from the U.S. are pitted against an enemy that hides behind women and children and hopes to make propaganda out of civilian casualties? Definitely check.

The media, starting with Time magazine, did its job by digging out an awful truth despite misleading statements from officialdom? That's one interpretation. Here's another: The media, starting with Time magazine, relied on information from questionable sources and then rushed to judgment.

And what about the investigations that led to charges against four enlisted Marines who did the shootings and four officers who allegedly did not investigate with much vigor?

Were they a sign that the Marine Corps was determined to investigate its own -- to prove to the public that the Marines mean that stuff about keeping their honor clean? Or were they botched by Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents who displayed an appalling predisposition to levy criminal charges regardless of the truth?

There's evidence to support either assertion.



Well reported

Tonight's "Frontline" is a yeoman effort, balanced and thoughtful, and with sympathy for the relatives of the Iraqi dead and for young Marines, past and present, who must make life-and-death decisions in the blink of an eye.

To be sure it would have been better if "Frontline" could have gotten cooperation from the prosecution but the military justice system does permit that kind of media scrutiny.

Haditha was a story propelled by politics. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) immediately linked the events to his opposition to the war. As "Frontline" points out gently, much of Murtha's over-the-top rhetoric does not appear to be supportable by the facts.

The Haditha story is really two stories: Did the enlisted have the "positive identification" needed to storm three houses and begin firing? Did the officers shirk their duties by being too quick to assume the deaths, while tragic, were the byproduct of "troops in contact" with the enemy?

"Frontline" has chosen to focus on the enlisted, particularly the squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, whose court martial is set soon for Camp Pendleton. It was Wuterich, in his first combat situation, who told his Marines to shoot first and ask questions later -- the way that Marines did during the all-out fight in Fallouja in late 2004.

Was it reasonable to use that tactic in Haditha, where families were known to be living? Does a generalized feeling that shots may have been fired from a certain direction constitute the positive identification required under Marine rules to use deadly force? Did the Marines actually hear the racking of AK-47s? Such questions will be central to Wuterich's court martial.

Neal Puckett, Wuterich's attorney and a former Marine, says it is illogical to think that Marines in a combat environment should act like a civilian SWAT squad, surrounding a house and using a bullhorn to warn the occupants to come out so they can check for lawbreakers.

Col. John Ewers, a Marine lawyer, counters that Marines "know how to aggressively take people down and to suggest that we can't do the shades of gray in-between is a cop-out and I think it sells Marines short."

Bing West, former Marine, former assistant secretary of defense, and premier chronicler of Marines in Iraq, appears to take a midpoint. Entering the first house in a "kinetic" fashion was appropriate, he tells the interviewer, but Marines should have stopped after they realized women and children were being killed and that no insurgents were found.

There you have it: three Marines, three different views. Welcome to the tactical and moral complexities of what happened in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.

Since Haditha, the Marines have a standing order that all civilian deaths be investigated. The order reinstitutes a policy that was in place during 2003 and early 2004 but fell by the wayside after the bloody battles in Fallouja in 2004.



Mission objectives

The promise of increased scrutiny is unsettling to troops. "It does make you second-guess yourself," Sgt. Tim Tardif tells Frontline. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Leavenworth (prison). I also want to bring all my boys home safe."

Gary Myers, whose client, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, had charges dropped after a preliminary hearing, says "Haditha will be the case that causes the military to come to grips with the rules of engagement in a way they never have had to before."

It would be pretty to think so, but the chances appear slim. Even as journalists and historians ponder the meaning of Haditha, both sides have moved on.

Haditha leaders are working with the U.S. on various reconstruction projects, including medical care and a better water and electricity system. Even a tribal sheik whose son was killed by Marines in a different incident is now making common-cause with the U.S.

Asked recently by The Times about the killings, another tribal sheik blamed the insurgents who held the town in a death grip into late August 2006 when the tribes, Iraqi police, and the Marines formed an alliance.

Soon the Marines will move out of Haditha into a plywood camp being built outside the city by Navy Seabees. The school which the Marines used as their headquarters and renamed "Camp Sparta" will be returned to the Iraqis.

Before they leave, the Americans will paint over the walls, including the one containing the name of Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso.

tony.perry@latimes.com

Tony Perry is currently on his sixth visit to Iraq, where he reports on Marines.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Tom Dorsey | TV News and Reviews
'Frontline' shines light into the moral murkiness of battle


He told his men to "shoot first and ask questions later."

Or maybe he said, "Don't hesitate to shoot. I can't remember my exact words, but I wanted them to understand that hesitation to shoot would only result in the four of us being killed," said Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich.

Two weeks from now he will be court-martialed in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha, a town now infamous for what happened there.

What happened and some of the reasons why is the subject of a "Frontline" documentary, "Rules of Engagement," at 9 tonight on KET2.

Some polls show the Iraq war has slipped to third place on the list of what voters are concerned about these days behind the economy and maybe terrorism or health care. But it's still No. 1 for the troops fighting there and the people they're fighting for and against.


What "Frontline" tries to do is show how complex, confusing and deadly the rules about how this war is fought can be. We've seen it all before in Vietnam, where nobody quite knew who the enemy was because they so often wore civilian clothes and could be women or even children.

It may be a cover-up that got the Marines in Haditha into so much trouble, or maybe it's more than that. A military press release just said, "A U.S. Marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb." The number would be changed to 24 afterward.

Four months later Time magazine received a gruesome video showing that men, women and children had been riddled with gunfire and hadn't been killed by a bomb at all. The senders said the Marines had committed the murders in cold blood.

A year later four Marines were charged with murder and four others were accused of not investigating what really happened. A few facts are known. A lot of what went on in the minds of those involved during those fateful split seconds isn't.

What is known is that the members of Kilo Company were send to Haditha after a ferocious house-to-house firefight in Fallujah in the biggest battle Americans had fought since Vietnam. Lots of soldiers died. So did many civilians when terrorists hid among them. Haditha was next on the Marines' list of hotspots.

A roadside bomb did go off that day, instantly killing a Marine riding in a Humvee. There was a suspicious car with men in it nearby. "My own squad got into a firefight in which nine out of 12 people got injured that day from grenades and from being shot at," a sergeant said.

Where were the shots coming from?

Nearby houses seemed the obvious answer, and the Marines decided to clear them out one by one.

Wuterich gave the order to do it Fallujah-style by tossing grenades and going in shooting.

A 9-year-old girl said: "They came in and killed my father. Then they killed my grandfather. After that they threw a grenade in the hall where we were sitting. Everyone died except me and my brother."

One Marine, who had charges dropped in exchange for immunity, suggested that his fellow soldiers were outraged by the death of a popular team member and had gone on a rampage.

The people charged said it didn't happen that way at all. Military officials later reduced murder charges to involuntary and voluntary manslaughter.

The outcome of the court-martial may have far-reaching effects. "It does make you second-guess yourself," said another sergeant. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Leavenworth, but I also want to bring all my boys home safe."

A court will listen to what everybody has to say, but will the court ever really know what happened in those heart-pounding moments when decisions were made in darkened rooms in split seconds?

Some analysts say the rules of engagement -- when and where and who to shoot -- are clear, but little is clear in the heat of war. The sergeants should have known better, say some, but what about asking 18-year-olds to weigh life and death in the tick of a clock in a war where the enemy can be anybody?

Still, how do children in their pajamas become innocent victims? Their lives are just as dear to their parents as the life of that 18-year-old soldier.

The economy may be front and center in many people's minds these days, but somewhere in Iraq right this minute people are confronted with decisions that may haunt them all their days.

As "Frontline" shows, it's a heavy burden to thrust on such young shoulders.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

02/18/2008
'Frontline' takes a different look at Haditha
By: Andrew Perlot , Staff

MERIDEN - PBS's "Frontline" will air an in-depth program tonight at 9 about the 2005 killings in Haditha, Iraq.


The piece, titled "Rules of Engagement," hopes to provide an evenhanded look at the incident, which involved a squad of Marines under Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, a former Meriden resident.

The Marines allegedly killed 24 Iraqis, some of whom may have been insurgents, during the Nov. 19, 2005 incident. Wuterich has said he and his men followed standard combat procedure.

They were responding to a roadside bomb attack that killed one Marine and left two wounded. The Marines are accused of shooting and killing five Iraqis who approached the scene and later raiding several nearby houses, killing many of those inside.

Wuterich, 27, a 1998 Platt High School graduate, will be the first of four men to stand trial. He faces charges of voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and obstruction of justice. His court martial is scheduled to begin March 3.

Another soldier who served with Wuterich, Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, was recently ordered to testify against him.
The idea that the Haditha killings were a straightforward massacre of innocents is incorrect, according to Arun Rath, the producer, writer and director of "Rules of Engagement."

The initial media coverage - following an announcement by U.S. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania that the Marines had killed "innocent civilians in cold blood" - focused on the evidence against the men, Rath told the Record-Journal Monday.

As evidence in the Marines' favor came out, however, there was little additional coverage, he added. Wuterich is suing Murtha for defamation.

The Frontline piece was originally going to focus on civilian casualties in Iraq and only use Haditha as an example, Rath said, but his investigation led him to believe there was more to the killings than met the eye.

"The biggest dramatic detail compared to the initial version was just how intense a day of fighting it was in Haditha," Rath said. "We do have a number of witnesses saying that (the Marines) were coming under fire, including Iraqi witnesses. It appears that this was an all-out insurgent push to retake the town."

The program includes footage from an aerial drone that circled the area during the incident and an interview with an intelligence officer who explains the fight going on in Haditha at the same time.

Wuterich's father, David Wuterich, a Meriden resident, said he hopes the show provides a wider perspective of the events.

"We're hoping it comes out and shows what these guys go through, that this isn't just one-sided," he said. "They have to make split-second decisions."

The story, as portrayed by Murtha, was exaggerated, David Wuterich said, and needed to be set straight.

Ronald R. Perry, a Vietnam veteran and officer in the city's Marine Corps League, welcomes a new look at Haditha.

"This can release some of the truths about how you engage in combat. I hope it brings light to some of what (Wuterich) was trying to say - 'I was trained to do a thing, and I did it.' I hope this explains what young Marines have to go through," Perry said.

The segment airs at 9 p.m. on CPTV, Cox Cable position 5.
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Ellie