Then there is this time.
The allegations of what happened at Haditha are so horrific that is like I had the wind knocked out of me. I am left gasping.
Then the NY Times reports,
"The commanders have told investigators they had not viewed as unusual, in a combat environment, the discrepancies that emerged almost immediately in accounts about how the two dozen Iraqis died, and that they had no information at the time suggesting that any civilians had been killed deliberately."
The report of the civilain deaths had not been viewed as unusual.
Can we grasp what that means? Going back at least to the battle for Fallujah?
An account about how TWO DOZEN civilian Iraqis were killed under questionable circumstances was not viewed as unusual?
From the Washington Post:
"At 5 p.m. Nov. 19, near the end of one of the most violent days the Marine Corps had experienced in the Upper Euphrates Valley, a call went out for trucks to collect the bodies of 24 Iraqi civilians.
"The unit that arrived in the farming town of Haditha found babies, women and children shot in the head and chest. An old man in a wheelchair had been shot nine times. A group of girls, ages 1 to 14, lay dead. Everyone had been killed by gunfire, according to death certificates issued later."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300710_pf.html
Google "Fallujah" to learn more about the roots of Haditha:
"The six weeks of fighting ended in a truce, amid reports of hundreds of civilian deaths. The agreement turned over security to a force -- the "Fallujah Brigade" -- led by former officers of Hussein's demobilized army. This enitity quickly collapsed, and control of the town has passed into the hands of insurgents."
"Al-Nazzal told us about ambulances being hit by snipers, women and children being shot. Describing the horror that the siege of Fallujah had become, he said, 'I have been a fool for 47 years. I used to believe in European and American civilization.' "
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