Lawyer says 3 officers not target of probes
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Three officers relieved of command from a Marine battalion are not targets of investigations into whether their troops killed as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians and tried to cover it up, the lawyer for one of the officers said yesterday.
Captain James Kimber learned about the deaths only after the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment returned from Iraq in March, attorney Paul Hackett said.
Separate investigations seek to determine whether the Nov. 19 killings in the western Iraqi city of Haditha were criminal and whether the Marines involved and their commanding officers tried to hide the truth.
The New York Times, quoting a senior military official in Iraq, reported today that a military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated assertions by Marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November were victims of a roadside bomb. Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the Marines' account were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official told the Times.
The investigation, which was led by Colonel Gregory Watt, an Army officer in Baghdad, also raised questions about whether the Marines followed established rules for identifying hostile threats when they assaulted houses near the site of a bomb attack, which killed a fellow Marine, according to the Times.
The Pentagon has said little publicly. What is known is that a military convoy hit a roadside bomb, killing one Marine. The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.
Representative John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has said Marines shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot others.
Yesterday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said President Bush learned of the killings only after a reporter from Time magazine asked questions. Time published an article in March that said the Pentagon was investigating the incident.
The targets of the investigations are about a dozen enlisted Marines, according to Hackett. He said the highest ranking among those under investigation is a staff sergeant who led the four-vehicle convoy that was hit by the bomb.
Kimber, who was nominated for a Bronze Star for valor in Haditha, was relieved of command last month because his subordinates in the battalion's Lima Company used profanity and criticized the performance of Iraqi security services during an interview with Britain's Sky News TV, Hackett said. 