Residents in video implicate US in deaths of civilians

HADITHA, Iraq -- A video showing the bodies of civilians in this town includes descriptions by residents of a rampage by US Marines that they said left a trail of destruction in November.

A copy of the video, given to Reuters by Iraq's Hammurabi Organization for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy, showed corpses lined up at the Haditha morgue that residents said were the result of a Marine assault on several houses. Time magazine published allegations on Monday that US Marines killed civilians in Haditha after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. It published detailed accounts by people in the town, west of Baghdad.

A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week. Time said the main question facing the probe was whether the ''Marines' killing of 15 noncombatants was an act of legitimate self-defense or negligent homicide."

Haditha, in western Anbar province, is in an area that has seen much Sunni Arab insurgent activity.

On Nov. 20, US Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gun battle, US and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.

US military officials have since confirmed that that version of the events of Nov. 19 was wrong and that the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead.

Time said this week that the video of the corpses it provided to the military in January had prompted the revision.

Accusations that American soldiers often kill innocent people have fueled anger at the occupation among Iraqis over the past three years. Iraqis also say that little disciplinary action has resulted in the few cases that are investigated.

The video given to Reuters shows bodies piled in the back of a white pickup truck outside the morgue. Among them was a girl who appeared to be about 3 years old.

One man wept and leaned against a wall as he identified a relative, and other residents inspected bodies in the morgue. One man's face had been torn apart by bullets, while a blackened corpse was missing legs and forearms.

''Oh God, oh God," said one person as others covered their noses.

The video also showed houses with large bullet holes in the walls, pieces of human flesh, pools of blood, and clothes and pots scattered across floors.

''A whole family was wiped out in this house. A father, mother, and three children," said one man.

Abdel Rahman al-Mashhadani, the head of Hammurabi, said US Marines had killed 15 people in Haditha after the roadside bomb attack. The group's Haditha branch said it got the video from a local man.

Mashhadani said he had brought the case to the attention of the United Nations office in Baghdad.

''These violations of human rights happen every day in Iraq," he said.