Corps sacks three commanders (under investigation - deaths of 15 Iraqis)

You get fired? Kinda like taking long coffee breaks at work, i guess. Still, I'm glad to see something done.

I do not say that the loss of one of their own was not a tragedy, but who's fault is it? I do believe you can lay that at the feet of our chicken shit pResident AWOL and his neocon buddies. Hearts and flowers my ass.

But to go on a 'rampage' and kill 15 people, including children? Why are there not marines being charged with murder?

enlisted men... just wait.

The pullout of U.S. troops has unofficially begun!

:party: (This post is part of the George Bush GULF WAR GOOD NEWS initiative.)
rocknation

Jesus.

How many ways does it need to be illistrated that Iraq = FUBAR.

Reports from residents, videotape add to probe of Iraqi civilians' deaths

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Residents gave new details Monday about allegations that U.S. Marines killed 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a Marine.

The military, which announced Friday that a dozen Marines are under investigation for possible war crimes in the Nov. 19 incident, said in a statement Monday that a videotape of the aftermath of the shootings in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, was presented in support of the allegations.

Details of the incident were first brought forward by Time magazine, which reported this week that it obtained a videotape two months ago taken by a Haditha journalism student that shows the dead still in their nightclothes.

The magazine report mirrored what was told independently to The Associated Press by residents who described what happened as "a massacre." However, Time said the available evidence did not prove conclusively that the Marines had deliberately killed innocents.

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...more...

Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’

excerpt:

An investigation by Time established that the civilians had not been killed by the roadside bomb, but were shot in their homes after the marines rampaged through Haditha. Among the dead were seven women and three children.

One eyewitness told Time: "I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny."

A Pentagon inquiry has reportedly confirmed that the civilians were killed by marines. But it said the deaths were the result of "collateral damage" and not, as some villagers alleged, murder by marines taking revenge for the death of their comrade. The case has been handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to determine if the rules of war were broken.

In Abu Sifa last week, Khalaf’s account was corroborated by a neighbour, Hassan Kurdi Mahassen, who was also woken by the sound of helicopters and saw soldiers entering Fayez’s home after spraying it with such heavy fire that walls crumbled.

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"Women and even the children were blindfolded and their hands bound. Some of their faces were totally disfigured. A lot of blood was on the floors and the walls."

...more...