Some of the insurgents involved in planning the attack and
firing at Marines during a daylong engagement have been apprehended and
are in custody. Much of the story claiming what really
happened in the aftermath of the IED explosion was reported by the
Washington Post on June 11. NewsMax can
now reveal the rest of the story about what really happened at Haditha.
In order to fully understand what happened last Nov. 19, it is important to know what kind of city Haditha is.
"We require more manpower to cover this area the way we need to," one
military official told the Los Angeles Times. One Knight Ridder
reporter called Haditha, a town of about 100,000 people, "an insurgent
bastion," reporting that "insurgents blend in with the residents,
setting up cells in their homes next to those belonging to everyday
citizens, some of them supportive."
Knight Ridder said that around the time of an August attack, when a
total of 20 U.S. Marines were killed in two days, "several storefronts
were lined with posters and pictures supporting al-Qaida. ... "There is
no functioning police station and the government offices are largely
vacant. The last man to call himself mayor relinquished the title
earlier this year after scores of death threats from insurgents."
According to an August 2005 story in Britain's Guardian newspaper,
Haditha, under the nose of an American base, "is a miniature
Taliban-like state. Insurgents decide who lives and dies, which
salaries get paid, what people wear, what they watch and listen to."
When the Marines first went into the city, they were aware of the tight
control insurgents exercised over Haditha. They discovered that the
insurgents had freshly paved over dirt roads leading into town under
the auspices of civic works projects.
They were, according to a NewsMax source, "beautiful asphalt-surfaced
roads" that even included painted lines. The only problem, the source
recalled, was that insurgents had laid more than 100 mega-IEDs under
that asphalt. And, in order to avoid having to change batteries in the
triggering devices, they had wired them into the city power lines
lining the road.
It is important to remember that the so-called details of the alleged
massacre came from Iraqis and residents of Haditha, a city run by
insurgents who have those residents not allied with them under their
bloody thumbs.
In the Post story, an attorney for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26,
said that his client told him that several civilians were killed Nov.
19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from
inside a house. He insisted there was no vengeful massacre, but he
described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle
of a chaotic battlefield.
"It will forever be his position that everything they did that day was
following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of
Marines," Neal A. Puckett, who represents Wuterich in the ongoing
investigations into the incident, told the Post. "He's really upset
that people believe that he and his Marines are even capable of
intentionally killing innocent civilians."
According to the Post, Wuterich told his attorney in initial interviews
over nearly 12 hours that the shootings were the unfortunate result of
a methodical sweep for enemies in a firefight. Two attorneys for other
Marines involved in the incident said Wuterich's account is consistent
with those they had heard from their clients.
Wrote the Post: "On Nov. 19, Wuterich's squad left its headquarters at
Firm Base Sparta in Haditha at 7 a.m. on a daily mission to drop off
Iraqi army troops at a nearby checkpoint. "It was like any other day,
we just had to watch out for any other activity that looked
suspicious," said Marine Cpl. James Crossan, 21, in an interview from
his home in North Bend, Wash. He was riding in the four-Humvee convoy
as it turned left onto Chestnut Road, heading west at 7:15 a.m.
"Shortly after the turn, a bomb buried in the road ripped through the
last Humvee. The blast instantly killed the driver, Lance Cpl. Miguel
Terrazas, 20. Wuterich, who was driving the third Humvee in the line,
immediately stopped the convoy and got out, Puckett told the Post,
adding that while Wuterich was evaluating the scene, Marines noticed a
white unmarked car full of "military-aged men" lingering near the bomb
site. When Marines ordered the men to stop, they ran; Puckett said it
was standard procedure at the time for the Marines to shoot suspicious
people fleeing a bombing, and the Marines opened fire, killing four or
five men.
"The first thing he thought was it could be a vehicle-borne bomb or
these guys could be ready to do a drive-by shooting," Puckett said,
explaining that the Marines were on alert for such coordinated,
multistage attacks.
According to Puckett, as Wuterich began briefing the platoon leader,
AK-47 shots rang out from residences on the south side of the road, and
the Marines ducked.
A corporal with the unit leaned over to Wuterich and said he saw the
shots coming from a specific house. After a discussion with the platoon
leader, they decided to clear the house, according to Wuterich's
account.
"There was a threat, and they went to eliminate the threat," Puckett said.
A four-man team of Marines, including Wuterich, kicked in the door and
found a series of empty rooms, noticing quickly that there was one room
with a closed door and people rustling behind it, Puckett said. They
then kicked in that door, tossed a fragmentation grenade into the room,
and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and
smoke, killing several people, Puckett said.
The Marine who fired the rounds - Puckett said it was not Wuterich -
had experience clearing numerous houses on a deployment in Fallujah,
where Marines had aggressive rules of engagement.
Although it was almost immediately apparent to the Marines that the
people dead in the room were men, women, and children – most likely
civilians – they also noticed a back door ajar and believed that
insurgents had slipped through to a house nearby, Puckett said. The
Marines stealthily moved to the second house, kicking in the door,
killing one man inside and then using a fragmentation grenade and more
gunfire to clear another room full of people, he said.
Wuterich, not having found the insurgents, told the team to stop and
headed back to the platoon leader to reassess the situation, Puckett
said, adding that his client knew a number of civilians had just been
killed.
As already stated, the Haditha massacre story reported by Time magazine
was based entirely on accounts from Iraqis with an ax to grind. The
facts of what happened tell a different story. The real story, it will
eventually be revealed, is backed up by evidence Time didn't know
existed. It gives the lie to the idea that there was anything like a
massacre in Haditha on Nov. 19. Here, for the first time, is the truth
about what happened.
NewsMax can verify Wuterich's account. The site of the IED explosion
was in an area well known as an insurgent stronghold, where as many as
50 IEDs were found previously, and from where, on two previous
occasions, insurgents launched small-arms fire, rocket-propelled
grenades, and mortar attacks on K Company.
Within five minutes of the blast, Marines on the scene reported they
were receiving small-arms fire. Within 30 minutes of the blast, and
while the house-clearing was still under way, an Explosive Ordnance
Disposal (EOD) team en route to the site came under small-arms fire in
a known insurgent tactic to ambush first responders.
At the same time, just 30 minutes after the house-clearing, an
intelligence unit arrived to question the Marines involved in the
house-clearing operation. NewsMax sources say the behavior of the
Marines involved gave them no reason to believe anything but what they
had been told.
At about the same time a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) arrived over the
blast area and from that moment on, for the entire day , the UAV
transmitted views of the engagement to the company command site,
battalion headquarters, the regimental HQ, and the division HQ. What
the UAV captured was a view of Marines in their perimeter, as they went
about doing house-clearing. It was then vectored to the surrounding
area to catch any fleeing insurgents. It showed four insurgents fleeing
the neighborhood, loading weapons into their car, and linking up with
their partners (the ones that had conducted the ambush on the EOD
team).
Knowing what we now know about Wuterich's account, these fleeing
insurgents were most likely the same ones who left through the back
door of the house he was clearing.
There are photos of this, and they show the insurgents getting back
into their car after loading the weapons The UAV then followed them
south to their safe house. From that point forward, until about 6 p.m.,
the safe house was hit by bombs and an assault by a K Company squad.
The UAV followed the insurgents who had been inside through town.
The final tally for these engagements was two insurgents killed by
direct fire, one killed by GBU bombs, and one detained. The entire
action was followed by the UAV overhead.
Keep in mind, the entire action was followed by keeping the UAV overhead all day.
The Haditha "massacre" being referred to is the 30 minutes to one hour
that took place first thing in the morning. The rest of the day's
activities, in fact, confirmed the nature of the morning's attack.
It is clear that the entire incident was planned and carried out by
insurgents who detonated the IED, and then, in a familiar tactic,
attacked the Marines responding to the blast – deliberately putting
civilians at risk.
This is what happened in Haditha that day. It was a daylong engagement
with armed insurgents that involved civilian casualties who died as a
result of being caught in the middle of a firefight. It had been
reported as a blast followed by a TIC – Marine Corps terminology for
"Troops in Contact." In other words, gunfire directed at the Marines.
As the battalion went about compiling information on the insurgents'
identities and determining who had been involved in the attack, its
actions in the ensuing weeks resulted in the detention of several
insurgents who masterminded the attack, and who remain incarcerated in
Abu Ghraib prison today.
I have come close to identifying a small network of such
unethical
What a complete loser this guy Leopold is. Of course, he hangs out with another of our 
What a coincidence--there is a new book deal--and it was announced on the same day as this suit:
"Ex-CIA Officer Finds New Memoir Publisher
Thursday, July 13, 2006
BY HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer
NEW YORK — Former CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose outing led to the indictment of a White House official, has agreed to write her memoirs for Simon&Schuster, weeks after a reported seven-figure deal with the Crown Publishing Group fell through.
"It will be a very interesting book by a key figure of our time," Simon&Schuster spokesman Adam Rothberg said Thursday.
Financial terms were not disclosed and no publication date has been set. In early May, Crown announced that it would publish Plame’s book, but the two sides could not agree on a final contract."
I have to think Fitz does not like this one bit.
Posted by: clarice | July 13, 2006 at 04:11 PM