Semper Fi

Semper Fi, Part Three
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Semper Fi, Part One
Semper Fi, Part Two

Military Justice: The case against the Haditha Marines unravels as murder charges are dropped against one and the court hearing of two others is postponed. Will we soon be hearing John Murtha's apology?

The seemingly forgotten incident began as a Marine convoy of the Camp Pendleton-based Kilo Company, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, was passing through the town of Haditha in the contested Iraqi province of Anbar on Nov. 19, 2005. A roadside improvised explosive device (IED) went off, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas, who was on his second tour of duty.

After the initial attack, the Marines took small arms fire from nearby houses. They returned fire and went house to house searching for their attackers. For their efforts in responding to an insurgent ambush, four Marines were charged with murder, accused of engaging in a rampage of revenge for their fallen comrade.

Marines who were charged with murder include, from left, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt and Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz.
Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, was charged with using his service rifle to murder 18 individuals while having "intent to kill or cause great bodily harm."

Three squad mates — Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, 22, Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz, 24, and Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, 25 — were charged with unlawfully killing three, five and six civilians, respectively. Others were charged with covering up the incident.

While the matter was still under investigation, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., decided it would be sentence first and trial later when he proclaimed that the Marines had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

A March 27, 2006, Time magazine report published claims by an Iraqi civil rights group that the Marines then barged into nearby houses, throwing grenades and shooting civilians randomly as they cowered in fear. Liberals thought they had their Iraqi My Lai.

But now, as reported by Newsmax.com, all charges, including murder, are being dropped against Sgt. Dela Cruz, presumably in some sort of immunity deal to testify against the others. This comes after it was announced that Article 32 hearings against two of the others and Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander, have been postponed.

Is the case against the Haditha Marines falling apart?

According to Newsmax, a Marine who was the batallion's intelligence officer has given an eight-hour-long taped deposition that will be available to the defense at Article 32 hearings in May.

The officer was said to be in possession of exculpatory evidence, including video, that provides a minute-by-minute picture of that day's action, confirming the Marines' story that they were merely doing what they were trained to do — responding to a perceived threat with overwhelming force.

The evidence includes all the radio traffic describing the ongoing action between the Marines and battalion headquarters.

It shows the Marines were aware that the insurgents were taping their ambush of Kilo Company for propaganda purposes. An edited version of the video wound up in the hands of an anti-war Time correspondent and helped spawn the murder investigation.

According to those who've seen the evidence, it clearly demonstrates that the incident was part of a planned ambush by insurgent forces, that they used the tragically killed civilians as human shields and that, despite the claims of Rep. Murtha, this was not murder but the tragic result of an ongoing firefight in which U.S. Marines were honorably defending themselves.

Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center attorney who questioned the officer, says his "testimony shows the complexity of the attack that day, the callousness of the terrorists toward the local civilians, whom they use to their advantage, and the error of viewing this incident in a vacuum."

We wish the center well in its defense of the Haditha Marines. Its goal, according to the center's president and chief counsel, Richard Thompson, is to prove their innocence and "to allow the facts of Nov. 19, 2005, and beyond to be presented to the investigating officer rather than the scurrilous and unfounded accusations from anti-war politicians and media who rely on insurgent sources for their stories about our decent and hard-fighting men in uniform."

Semper Fi.