-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 18, 2007 1:34:49 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: "Women and Children First"
Marine ordered Iraqi women and kids shot, squad member testifies
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/18/america/NA-GEN-US-Marines-
Haditha.php
CAMP PENDLETON, California: A Marine charged with murdering two
girls and killing several other Iraqis gave orders to shoot into a
roomful of children and young women, a squad member testified.
Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum then went into the room himself, followed
by loud noise that could have been M-16 gunfire or a grenade, said
Lance Cpl. Humberto Manuel Mendoza.
"I told him there's just women and kids in the room," Mendoza said
Tuesday.
"He replied, 'Well, shoot them.'"
Mendoza was with Tatum and two other Marines when they went to
clear houses in Haditha, Iraq, on Nov. 19, 2005, in the aftermath
of a roadside bomb that killed one Marine and wounded two others.
Marines killed 24 civilians, resulting in the biggest U.S. criminal
case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war.
A military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Paul Atterbury, asked Mendoza
whether he thought it was possible Tatum was joking about shooting
the women and children.
"He was very serious, sir," said Mendoza, who testified with a
grant of immunity.
Mendoza said he shot a man in the first house the squad entered and
believed he was dead. Tatum went into the room where the body lay
and fired more shots.
"He said it was to make sure he was dead," Mendoza said.
At the second house, Mendoza said he shot a man as the team went
in. He then stayed in the kitchen while squad members threw a
grenade and moments later found a woman in her 20s cowering in a
back bedroom with four or five children.
Mendoza said he returned to the house later as part of a body
retrieval team and saw that the woman and several children were
dead from multiple wounds that could have been caused by M-16 fire.
Tatum's attorney, Jack Zimmerman, questioned Mendoza's account,
noting that Mendoza initially gave a different version of events to
government investigators.
Mendoza, who is among seven Marines given immunity in the case,
told investigators in March 2006 he shot at least two men because
they were in houses declared hostile.
"I was following my training that all individuals in a hostile
house are to be shot," Mendoza told investigators.
Zimmerman brought up a polygraph test Mendoza failed after changing
his account of events.
Mendoza replied he was telling the truth, and freely admitted lying
initially to protect his fellow Marines.
"You'd lie to protect your fellow Marines, but not to help
yourself?" Zimmerman asked.
"Yes," Mendoza said.
Mendoza, a Venezuelan citizen, has an application for U.S.
citizenship pending. That application would be denied if he were
charged with any crime, he acknowledged. But he said that he had
not told any government lawyers about the content of his testimony
before he was granted immunity in December 2006, shortly before
charges were filed against Tatum and other Marines.
According to a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service
dated May 17, 2006, Tatum told investigators that he shot women and
children because "women and kids can hurt you too." He went on to
say he later felt remorseful about the incident.
The report describes an interview with Tatum, but it was not signed
by the Marine.
In March, Tatum passed a polygraph test, ordered by his lawyers
last March and submitted as evidence, in which he said he thought
both houses he entered in Haditha were hostile.
Mendoza was the second of Tatum's squad members to testify on the
second day of preliminary hearings to determine whether he will be
tried for murder.
Also Tuesday, Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz testified that after the
deaths Tatum disapproved how the United States was waging war and
wished troops had more leeway to shoot.
Tatum poked fun at a squad member who asked permission before
shooting and said he thought the war should be fought the way it
was in Biblical scriptures, "where you just go in the city and kill
every living thing," said Dela Cruz.
With Tatum, 26, leaning intently forward behind the defense table,
Dela Cruz spoke quietly and was repeatedly told to speak up for the
court reporter. He said Tatum made the comments to him while they
were on patrol in January 2006.
Dela Cruz said that he recalled Tatum entering an Iraqi home near
the bomb site where Marines had found more than $5,000 (€3,630) in
U.S. currency and suggested that the money should be sent to the
family of their fallen comrade to pay for a funeral.
"I think he was serious," Dela Cruz said. Tatum did not take the
money in the end.
At the opening of Tatum's hearing Monday, his attorney said Tatum
believed he was following procedure by confronting a threat with
deadly force.
Besides unpremeditated murder of two girls in one house, Tatum is
charged with negligent homicide in the deaths of two men, a woman
and a young boy. He is also accused of assaulting another boy and a
girl. If convicted of murder, he faces up to life in prison.
The squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, is charged with
murdering 18 Iraqis. His preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 22.
After the Article 32 investigation, the military equivalent of a
grand jury proceeding, hearing officer Lt. Col. Paul Ware will
recommend whether Tatum should face a court-martial. The final
decision rests with Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the general overseeing
the case.
Associated Press writer Thomas Watkins contributed to this report.
------------------
(Remember the "former" Sunni "insurgents" the U.S. government was
arming and integrating into U.S. military ops aiming at
"pacification"?)
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/
international-39/1184718546241340.xml&storylist=international
U.S. and Iraqi forces seized the western part of Baqouba last month
and had been expected to mount a major offensive to drive al-Qaida
in Iraq and other insurgents from the rest of the city, 35 miles
north of Baghdad. The Islamic State of Iraq, a front group for al-
Qaida in Iraq, has declared Baqouba as its capital.
Sunni extremists were believed to be moving out of Baqouba in
anticipation of a U.S. attack, seeking shelter with friendly tribes
to the north and east.
Elsewhere, in Diyala police Col. Ragheb Radhi al-Omairi said 29
members of a Shiite tribe were massacred late Monday when dozens of
suspected Sunni gunmen raided their village near Muqdadiyah, about
20 miles northeast of Baqouba. The dead included four women, al-
Omairi said.
The attackers rode into the village in several cars and trucks
about midnight. Some of them were dressed in military [uniform],
police said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were
not authorized to disclose information. The massacre lasted about
a half hour, according to al-Omairi.
A provincial medical official said the bodies were taken to a
clinic in Balad Ruz to be handed over to their families for
burial. He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his
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