Questions over lack of Haditha inquiry
General says he believed Marines

By Rick Rogers
STAFF WRITER

May 11, 2007

CAMP PENDLETON – One theme permeated the third day of a court hearing at Camp Pendleton for the Haditha case, which involves Marines who killed 24 Iraqi civilians: How could so many generals and other senior officers know about the deaths yet not launch an investigation?

These officers belonged to a command that routinely investigated everything from missing night-vision goggles to the accidental firing of weapons. But they accepted, without any follow-up inquiry, an explanation from rank-and-file Marines that what happened in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, was an unavoidable result of combat.

Yesterday, the top general overseeing U.S. military operations in Haditha and much of western Iraq at the time testified he found no reason to doubt the story.

“I had no information that a law-of-armed-conflict violation had been committed,” said Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, who testified via video conferencing from his current Pentagon job in Washington, D.C.

Huck, a two-star general, spoke at a pretrial hearing for Capt. Randy W. Stone, one of four officers accused of failing to investigate the killings.

Three enlisted Marines are charged with murder and other violations in the case. They allegedly became enraged after a roadside bomb killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas and injured other Marines. Prosecutors accuse the three enlisted servicemen of fatally shooting five men who approached the scene in a car shortly after the explosion, then killing 19 people in several nearby homes with an assortment of weapons.

Some of the defendants have said they shot at the Iraqis in the vehicle after they began running away. They also maintain that gunfire was coming from the homes, signaling the presence of insurgents.

Stone's civilian attorney, Charles Gittins, has called on Huck and other commanders to testify. He aims to prove that his client is not guilty of dereliction of duty because Marines throughout the command chain agreed that the Haditha killings were lawful.

Huck, who is not a Haditha defendant, described a military system in which each level of authority largely relied on the one below it to initiate a probe. He also wondered why numerous Iraqi groups in Haditha didn't raise any concerns with him about the alleged massacre.

It took a March article in Time magazine to spur an investigation, which has resulted in the biggest allegation of military atrocities of the Iraq war, which began in 2003.

Huck said he never heard questions about possible war crimes in Haditha until Feb. 12, 2006. His boss, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, sent him an e-mail that day saying Huck must have known that a Time reporter had asked some questions challenging the official military account.

Huck then discovered that his chief of staff and others in his command had known about the reporter's inquiry since mid-January.

Despite being “highly irritated” to learn that he wasn't kept in the loop on these developments, Huck responded to Chiarelli by writing: “I support our account and do not see the necessity for further investigation.”

Chiarelli called for a probe Feb. 13, 2006.

Yesterday, 1st Lt. Adam P. Mathes provided insight into the thinking of the battalion that included the seven Haditha defendants. He testified via a grainy video hookup from an undisclosed location in the Middle East.

Mathes, who was not present during the Haditha killings, said he viewed the Time reporter's questions as an attempt to blemish President Bush and the Marine Corps.

“It was sensationalistic and based on information that was factually inaccurate. It sounded like a really bad, negative spin,” Mathes testified. “This guy is looking for blood because blood leads headlines.”

Asked if the reporter's questions gave anyone pause that maybe something criminal had happened in Haditha, Mathes replied: “To do an investigation after being prompted by the press would be some kind of admission of guilt.”

Under cross-examination by a prosecutor, Mathes said the reporter's queries centered on the shootings and that neither the Bush administration nor it policies were mentioned.

He also acknowledged that during a town council meeting in Haditha, some Iraqis accused the Marines of murdering three families Nov. 19, 2005. Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani and Capt. Lucas M. McConnell attended the meeting, Mathes recalled.

Afterward, Mathes said, McConnell described the allegations as not “a very big deal – it was nothing, a rumor.”

Stone's court proceeding, known as an Article 32 hearing, is expected to last through Saturday. The investigating officer presiding over it will then review the evidence presented and recommend whether Stone should proceed to trial.

Ellie