Scandals, Iraq War, Torture, Rape and Abuse

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1 Iraq War, Torture, Rape and Abuse
2 Viet Nam War
- 2.1 My Lai massacre

Iraq War, Torture, Rape and Abuse

A look at criminal cases against U.S. troops stemming from the deaths of Iraqis since March 2003:

Convictions:

Staff Sgt. Cardenas J. Alban, convicted of killing a severely wounded 16-year-old Iraqi during fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City. He was sentenced to one year's confinement, demoted to private and given a bad-conduct discharge.

Staff Sgt. Johnny Horne Jr., pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder in the same case as Alban. He was sentenced to three years in prison, had his rank reduced to private, forfeited wages and was given a dishonorable discharge. His prison sentence was later reduced to one year to be consistent with Alban's case.

Cpl. Dustin Berg of the Indiana National Guard, convicted and sentenced to serve 18 months in prison and a bad-conduct discharge for the shooting death of an Iraqi police officer.

Spc. Rami Dajani, convicted of involuntary manslaughter (accessory after the fact) and making a false statement following the fatal shooting of an Iraqi translator. He was sentenced to 18 months in confinement, reduced in rank to private and given a bad-conduct discharge.

Spc. Charley L. Hooser, convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the same case involving Dajani. Hooser was sentenced to three years in prison and given a reduction in rank to private and a bad-conduct discharge.

Capt. Rogelio "Roger" Maynulet, convicted of assault with intent to commit voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a wounded Iraqi. He got no prison time, but was dismissed from the armed forces.

Pvt. Federico Daniel Merida of the North Carolina National Guard, pleaded guilty to killing a 17-year-old Iraqi soldier after the two had consensual sex. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, reduced in rank to private and dishonorably discharged.

Marine Maj. Clarke Paulus, convicted of dereliction of duty and maltreatment in a case stemming from the death of an Iraqi prisoner who was dragged out of his holding cell by the neck, stripped naked and left outside for seven hours in 2003. Paulus, who commanded a Marine detention camp in Iraq, was dismissed from the service but received no prison time.

Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins, acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in the alleged drowning of an Iraqi man, but convicted of assault for forcing the man and his cousin into the Tigris River. He was sentenced to six months in prison, reduced in rank and had to forfeit $2,000.

1st Lt. Jack Saville, pleaded guilty to assault and other crimes in the same incident as Perkins and was sentenced to 45 days in prison, and had to forfeit $2,000 for six months.

Pfc. Edward Richmond, convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting an Iraqi in the back of the head. He received three years in prison, had to forfeit all pay, and was dishonorably discharged.

Sgt. Michael P. Williams, convicted of one premeditated murder and unpremeditated murder in the deaths of unarmed civilians during operations near Sadr City. He was sentenced to life in prison and given a reduction in rank and a dishonorable discharge. His sentence was later reduced to 25 years.

Spc. Brent May, convicted of unpremeditated murder in the same incident as Williams. He was sentenced to five years and dishonorably discharged.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, found guilty of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty in the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush after interrogation at a detention camp. A military jury ordered a reprimand and forfeiture of $6,000 of his salary, and restricted him to his home, office and church for two months.

Chief Warrant Officer Jefferson L. Williams, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer and Spc. Jerry Loper were charged with murder and dereliction of duty along with Welshofer. The Army dropped the murder charges against Williams and Loper in exchange for their testimony against Welshofer. The murder charge against Sommer was also dropped. Williams, Sommer and Loper received administrative punishment.

Jorge Diaz, convicted of murdering an Iraqi man, who Diaz fatally shot while the man's hands were cuffed. Diaz was sentenced to seven years in prison, reduced in rank to private and given a dishonorable discharge.

Spc. James P. Barker, one of four Fort Campbell soldiers accused in the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 years in prison.

National Guard Sgt. Milton Ortiz Jr. was charged in the shooting death of an unarmed Iraqi man near Ramadi. He was reduced in rank to specialist after pleading guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice by placing a rifle near a mortally wounded Iraqi, and also threatening and assaulting an Iraqi in an unrelated incident.

Petty Officer Melson J. Bacos pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and making false official statements in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in Hamdania. Under his plea deal, Bacos received 12 months in the brig.

Pfc. John J. Jodka III pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice in the same case as Bacos. Jodka was sentenced to 18 months confinement.

Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate, Jr. pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and obstruction of justice in the same case as Jodka and Bacos and was sentenced to 21 months.

Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and obstruction of justice in the same case as Shumate, Jodka and Bacos. Jackson was sentenced to 21 months.

Cleared or acquitted:

Marine 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, cleared of murder charges in the shooting deaths of two Iraqi civilians. Pantano had been accused of riddling the two with bullets and hanging a warning sign on their corpses as a grisly example to insurgents.

Staff Sgt. Shane Werst, acquitted of premeditated murder in the shooting death of an unarmed Iraqi. Werst said he fired to save a fellow soldier.

National Guard Spc. Nathan B. Lynn, who was charged along with Sgt. Milton Ortiz, was cleared in the shooting death of an unarmed Iraqi man near Ramadi. He had faced a voluntary manslaughter charge.

Pending cases:

Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Cpls. Marshall L. Magincalda and Trent D. Thomas, and Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, are charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in Hamdania, the same case in which Bacos, Jodka, Shumate and Jackson were charged. In addition to murder, the four remaining defendants are also charged with kidnapping, conspiracy and other offenses.

Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, Spc. Juston R. Graber, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard and Spc. William B. Hunsaker are charged with the premeditated murder of three male detainees. Clagett, Girouard and Hunsaker are also charged with obstructing justice for allegedly threatening to kill another soldier who was a witness in the case.

Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard are accused in the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family, the same case in which co-defendant Barker pleaded guilty. The cases of the three men have been referred to courts-martial. A fifth man, accused ringleader former Pvt. Steven Green, 21, has pleaded not guilty to civilian charges including murder and sexual assault.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/12/03/news/top_stories/21_55_2212_2_06.txt

Valor medal process tarnished?

The recognition of valor is critical to morale and to the military's tradition of honor. The Bronze Star and Purple Heart, both with Oak Leaf Clusters, awarded to Army Sgt. Joseph Perry, who was killed by a sniper in Iraq, are recorded on his headstone at Fort Rosecrans.

November 12, 2006 By any measure, Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia robed himself in glory while fighting in Iraq.

After telling his squad to take positions outside, he entered an enemy-held house during the second battle of Fallujah on Nov. 10, 2004. Under fire and moving from room to room, he killed four insurgents and wounded one.

Bellavia's actions in the home and elsewhere that day saved the lives of three squads and earned him the awe of fellow soldiers. His unit nominated him for a Medal of Honor. Instead, he received a Silver Star for combat heroism.

His experience with the military awards process has turned Bellavia into a crusader against it. Now out of the Army, he has joined a widening and sometimes bitter debate over how the services reward valor – a debate that has prompted a major Pentagon review of the standards.

Bellavia sees a capricious system tilted in favor of officers and against enlisted grunts, who do most of the fighting. Medals are frequently awarded by desk-bond generals and colonels serving well outside the combat zone, he said.

The significant differences among the service branches regarding what constitutes valor also bother Bellavia.

“You have guys who have lost their limbs, and all they're getting is a Purple Heart,” said Bellavia, a resident of Batavia, N.Y., and a co-founder of a pro-war veterans' organization.

Sniping over medals of valor crops up during every war. But several military experts said it has never been more intense than it is over Iraq and Afghanistan, where guerrilla ambushes can turn supply lines into front lines with the explosion of a single bomb.

To Vietnam War veteran and military historian Bing West, the awards system is a scandal.

“It's out of control,” said West, whose book “No True Glory” chronicled the Fallujah battles of 2004. “The overall system is broken and does a great disservice to the individuals who served.”

Problem admitted

The Department of Defense has tacitly admitted the problem. Last summer, Pentagon officials created a commission to update the rules.

The 20-member panel includes mid-grade officers and senior enlisted members from each branch of the military. They will hold biweekly meetings through March, then produce recommendations for the defense secretary, said Bill Carr, the deputy undersecretary for military personnel policy.

The commission's mandate includes adopting unified guidelines for awards that all of the services give out, such as the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, Carr said. It also will clarify the differences between awards given for service and those that celebrate valor.

The commission will look at whether combat awards can go to troops serving anywhere in the world, as the Air Force advocates, or only to those serving in the war theater, as the other services argue.

Overall, the panel “really is wide open for anything a military service wants to raise,” Carr said.

Still, he considers the process a routine update, not the major overhaul demanded by critics.

“I think it's fine-tuning,” he said. “Most believe the process, as it is today, is working.”

The troops themselves have a strong sense of who deserves what and, more importantly, who doesn't.

Sgt. Ronn Cantu, 28, who served in the same battalion as Bellavia during 2004-05, recalled the reaction when his unit commander read a citation bestowing a medal to a soldier for doing his job as a gunner.

“There was snickering and looks exchanged among the guys in formation,” said Cantu, who will return to Iraq in December with his new unit, the 1st Cavalry Division. “We just said 'Oh, well.' ”

Tricky business

Combat troops disclaim any interest in medals, and no one worries about Silver Stars or Navy Crosses in the heat of battle. But when a general pins on a valor award, service members pay attention to who gets what.

“Marines will humbly say, 'It doesn't matter.' Well, let me tell you, it does matter,” said Maj. Douglas Zembiec, who commanded a highly decorated Marine Corps company from Camp Pendleton during battles in Fallujah. “The men do appreciate awards. They reinforce positive, valorous action.” Valor awards are intertwined with the military's finely honed tradition of honor.

The awards process is complex and, at least to the troops, mysterious. A service member's command gathers eyewitness accounts and someone writes up a narrative with a recommendation for a medal.

That recommendation proceeds up the chain of command. The most commonly given valor awards – the Bronze Star and the Commendation Medal, awarded by the Army, Air Force and Navy/Marine Corps – are decided by review boards within the member's own unit. The recommendation can be approved, upgraded, downgraded or rejected.

The military's highest awards – the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, the Air Force Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star – need Pentagon approval, a longer process.

Recognizing valor is a tricky business; the criteria are highly subjective and rife with ambiguity. Jealousy and second-guessing are almost inevitable.

Should an Army cook who grabbed a machine gun and repelled an enemy attack get a higher award than someone who was trained to fire that gun? Should an officer be more highly rewarded for courageous deeds because he carries more responsibility into battle, or should an enlisted soldier get the higher award for fulfilling duties above his pay grade?

These are the kinds of questions that medal arbiters must sort out, typically months after an event took place and with only the written statements of witnesses for guidance.

“The people who need to make the decision don't really know what happened,” Bellavia said.

Medal in the mail

Bellavia's nomination for the Medal of Honor was written for his unit by an embedded reporter who witnessed his actions in the Fallujah house. The magazine journalist had ignored Bellavia's warning to wait outside.

Later, Bellavia's squad announced that he would receive a Distinguished Service Cross during a welcome-home ceremony to be held shortly after the 1st Infantry Division returned from Iraq to its then-headquarters in Germany. Without explanation, the announcement was withdrawn just before the event.

Bellavia left the Army soon afterward and couldn't find out the status of his nomination for the Medal of Honor. He got his answer a few months ago when a Silver Star arrived at his home via third-class mail.

“It was a terribly embarrassing process,” he said.

Bellavia believes the nomination fell through the cracks after his company commander and executive officer were killed in combat and his division commander retired.

Now he is lobbying through the Vets for Freedom group for upgraded medals for some of his former Army mates.

“It's like pulling teeth to get these guys awards once they've left (the military),” he said. “We harass Congress, almost on a daily basis.”

Out of proportion?

Differing standards for awards from one service to another is what most troubles West, the author.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Navy and Air Force have awarded 3,216 and 1,666 valor medals, respectively. These branches have only a few troops serving ground combat roles in the Iraq war.

“The Air Force and the Navy have no right distributing this proportion of awards for valor versus the Army and Marine Corps,” West said.

The Army and Marine Corps, including their National Guard and Reserve components, have given out 5,452 and 3,379 valor awards above the level of achievement medal, respectively. They have taken the brunt of deaths and injuries during the current wars in the Middle East.

West advocates a permanent joint-services board to review valor awards and even out the disparities among the branches.

Carr said the Pentagon's review into how valor medals are awarded will be wide-ranging. He doesn't mind taking heat if it boosts service members' confidence in the integrity of the commendations.

“It's OK. Everybody's a stakeholder,” Carr said. “If any members of the (military) think it can be done better, they should let us know.”

Plenty of passionate veterans are prepared to do just that.

“I'm going to fall on my grenade to make this right,” Bellavia said. “We've got enough garbage to deal with. Get this award stuff worked out.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061112/news_lz1n12homeof.html

Friendly Fire

AP: Startling findings in Tillman probe

By SCOTT LINDLAW and MARTHA MENDOZA, Associated Press Writers 40 minutes ago

In a remote and dangerous corner of Afghanistan, under the protective roar of Apache attack helicopters and B-52 bombers, special agents and investigators did their work.

They walked the landscape with surviving witnesses. They found a rock stained with the blood of the victim. They re-enacted the killings — here the U.S. Army Rangers swept through the canyon in their Humvee, blasting away; here the doomed man waved his arms, pleading for recognition as a friend, not an enemy.

"Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" the NFL star shouted, again and again.

The latest inquiry into Tillman's death by friendly fire should end next month; authorities have said they intend to release to the public only a synopsis of their report. But The Associated Press has combed through the results of 2 1/4 years of investigations — reviewed thousands of pages of internal Army documents, interviewed dozens of people familiar with the case — and uncovered some startling findings.

One of the four shooters, Staff Sgt. Trevor Alders, had recently had PRK laser eye surgery. He said although he could see two sets of hands "straight up," his vision was "hazy." In the absence of "friendly identifying signals," he assumed Tillman and an allied Afghan who also was killed were enemy.

Another, Spc. Steve Elliott, said he was "excited" by the sight of rifles, muzzle flashes and "shapes." A third, Spc. Stephen Ashpole, said he saw two figures, and just aimed where everyone else was shooting.

Squad leader Sgt. Greg Baker had 20-20 eyesight, but claimed he had "tunnel vision." Amid the chaos and pumping adrenaline, Baker said he hammered what he thought was the enemy but was actually the allied Afghan fighter next to Tillman who was trying to give the Americans cover: "I zoned in on him because I could see the AK-47. I focused only on him."

All four failed to identify their targets before firing, a direct violation of the fire discipline techniques drilled into every soldier.

There's more:

_Tillman's platoon had nearly run out of vital supplies, according to one of the shooters. They were down to the water in their CamelBak drinking pouches, and were forced to buy a goat from a local vendor. Delayed supply flights contributed to the hunger, fatigue and possibly misjudgments by platoon members.

_A key commander in the events that led to Tillman's death both was reprimanded for his role and meted out punishments to those who fired, raising questions of conflict of interest.

_A field hospital report says someone tried to jump-start Tillman's heart with CPR hours after his head had been partly blown off and his corpse wrapped in a poncho; key evidence including Tillman's body armor and uniform was burned.

_Investigators have been stymied because some of those involved now have lawyers and refused to cooperate, and other soldiers who were at the scene couldn't be located.

_Three of the four shooters are now out of the Army, and essentially beyond the reach of military justice.

Taken together, these findings raise more questions than they answer, in a case that already had veered from suggestions that it all was a result of the "fog of war" to insinuations that criminal acts were to blame.

The Pentagon's failure to reveal for more than a month that Tillman was killed by friendly fire has raised suspicions of a coverup. To Tillman's family, there is little doubt that his death was more than an innocent mistake.

One investigator told the Tillmans that it hadn't been ruled out that Tillman was shot by an American sniper or deliberately murdered by his own men — though he also gave no indication the evidence pointed that way.

"I will not assume his death was accidental or 'fog of war,'" said his father, Pat Tillman Sr. "I want to know what happened, and they've clouded that so badly we may never know."

And so, almost two years after three bullets through the forehead killed the star defensive back — a man President Bush would call "an inspiration on and off the football field" — the fourth investigation began.

This time, the investigators are supposed to think like prosecutors:

Who fired the shots that killed Pat Tillman, and why?

Who insisted Tillman's platoon split and travel through dangerous territory in daylight, against its own policy? Who let the command slip away and chaos engulf the unit?

And perhaps most of all: Was a crime committed?

___

The long and complicated story of Pat Tillman's death and the investigations it spawned began five years ago, in the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center.

"It is a proud and patriotic thing you are doing," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote to Tillman in 2002, after Tillman — shocked and outraged by the Sept. 11 attacks — turned down a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the elite Army Rangers.

The San Jose, Calif., native enlisted with his brother Kevin, who gave up his own chance to play professional baseball. The Tillmans were deployed to Iraq in 2003, then sent to Afghanistan.

The mission of their "Black Sheep" platoon in April 2004 sounded straightforward: Divide a region along the Pakistan border into zones, then check each grid for insurgents and weapons. They were to clear two zones and then move deeper into Afghanistan.

But a broken-down Humvee known as a Ground Mobility Vehicle, or GMV, stalled the unit on an isolated road. A mechanic couldn't fix it, and a fuel pump flown in on a helicopter didn't help.

Hours passed. Enemy fighters watched invisibly, plotting their ambush.

Tillman's platoon must have presented an inviting target. There were 39 men — including six allied Afghan fighters trained by the CIA — and about a dozen vehicles.

Impatience was rising at the tactical operations center at Forward Operating Base Salerno, near Khowst, Afghanistan, where officers coordinated the movements of several platoons. Led by then-Maj. David Hodne, the so-called Cross-Functional Team worked at a U-shaped table inside a 20-by-30-foot tent with a projection screen and a satellite radio.

(Hodne, now a lieutenant colonel and executive officer for the 75th Ranger Regiment, declined to be interviewed on the record by the AP — as did nearly every person involved in the incident.)

When the Humvee broke down, the Black Sheep were nearing the end of their assignment; all that was left was to "turn one last stone and then get out," Hodne would testify. The unit was then to head for Manah, a small village where it would spend the night.

The commanders had already given the Black Sheep an extra day to get into its grid zones. High-ranking commanders were "pushing us pretty hard to keep moving," said Hodne.

"We had better not have any more delays due to this vehicle," he told his subordinates.

At the operations center, the Black Sheep's company commander, then-Capt. William C. "Satch" Saunders, was feeling the heat to get the platoon moving.

"We wanted to make sure we had a force staged to confirm or deny any enemy presence in Manah the next day, so we would not get ourselves too far behind setting ourselves up for our next series of operations," he recalled later to an investigator.

The order came down to split the platoon in two to speed its progress.

Saunders initially told investigators that Hodne had issued the order, but later, after he was given immunity from prosecution, he acknowledged it was his decision alone.

Hodne later said he was in the dark — "I felt like the village idiot because I had no idea what they were doing," he recalled. The decision was foolhardy, he said. Divided in two, "they didn't have enough combat power to do that mission" of clearing Manah, he testified. (Other commanders have insisted that splitting the platoon was perfectly safe and a common practice.)

One thing is clear: The order sparked a flurry of activity by the Black Sheep.

One of the gunners who shot Tillman said his unit didn't even have time to look at a map before getting back on the road.

"We were rushed to conduct an operation that had such flaws," said Alders. "Which in the end would prove to be fatal."

"If anything, this sense of urgency was as deadly to Tillman as the bullet that cut his life short," Alders wrote in a lengthy statement protesting his expulsion from the Rangers. "We could have conducted the search at night like we did on the follow-up operations or the next morning like we ended up doing anyway. Why, I ask, why?"

An investigator, Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, would later agree that an "artificial sense of urgency" to keep Tillman's platoon moving was a crucial factor in his death: "There was no specific intelligence that made the movement to Manah before nightfall imperative."

An officer involved in the incident told AP there was, however, general intelligence of insurgent activity in this region, historically a Taliban hotbed.

That suspicion would be confirmed when the Black Sheep drove through a narrow canyon, its walls towering about 500 feet, and came under fire from enemy Afghans. Chaos broke out and communications broke down.

After the platoon split, the second section of the convoy roared out of the canyon, into an open valley and straight at their comrades a few minutes ahead. A Humvee packed with pumped-up Rangers opened fire, killing the friendly Afghan and Tillman, though he desperately sought to be recognized.

Later, at least one of the same Rangers turned his guns on a village where witnesses say civilian women and children had gathered. The shooters raked it with fire, the American witnesses said; they wounded two additional fellow Rangers, including their own platoon leader.

___

Had it happened in the United States, police would have quickly cordoned off the area with "crime scene" tape and determined whether a law had been broken.

Instead, the investigations into Tillman's death have cascaded, one after another, for the past 30 months.

For Mary Tillman, getting to the bottom of her son's death is more than a personal quest.

"This isn't just about our son," she said. "It's about holding the military accountable. Finding out what happened to Pat is ultimately going to be important in finding out what happened to other soldiers."

In the days after the shootings, the first officer appointed to investigate, then-Capt. Richard Scott, interviewed all four shooters, their driver, and many others who were there. He concluded within a week that the gunmen demonstrated "gross negligence" and recommended further investigation.

"It could involve some Rangers that could be charged" with a crime, Scott told a superior later.

Then-Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey — the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon — later assured Tillman's family that those responsible would be punished as harshly as possible.

But no one was ever court-martialed; staff lawyers advised senior Army commanders reviewing the incident that there was no legal basis for it.

Instead, the Army punished seven people; four soldiers received relatively minor punishments known as Article 15s under military law, with no court proceedings. These four ranged from written reprimands to expulsion from the Rangers. One, Baker, had his pay reduced and was effectively forced out of the Army. The three other soldiers received administrative reprimands.

Scott's report circulated briefly among a small corps of high-ranking officers.

Then, it disappeared.

Some of Tillman's relatives think the Army buried the report because its findings were too explosive. Army officials refused to provide a copy to the AP, saying no materials related to the investigation could be released.

The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment, then-Col. James C. Nixon, wasn't satisfied with Scott's investigation, which he said focused too heavily on precombat inspections and procedures rather than on what had happened.

Scott "made some conclusions in the document that weren't validated by facts" as described by the participants, Nixon would tell later investigators.

Nixon assigned his top aide, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, to lead what became the second investigation. Kauzlarich harshly criticized Baker and the men on his truck.

Among other things, Baker should have known that at least two of his subordinates had never been in a firefight, and should have closely supervised where they shot.

"His failure to do so resulted in deaths of Cpl. Tillman and the AMF soldier, and the serious wounding of two other (Rangers)," Kauzlarich concluded. "While a great deal of discretion should be granted to a leader who is making difficult judgments in the heat of combat, the command also has a responsibility to hold its leaders accountable when that judgment is so wanton or poor that it places the lives of other men at risk."

Still, the Tillman family complained that questions remained: Who killed Tillman? Why did they fire? Were the punishments stiff enough?

"I don't think that punishment fit their actions out there in the field," said Kevin Tillman, who was with his brother the day Pat was killed but was several minutes behind him in the trailing element of a convoy and saw nothing.

"They were not inquiring, identifying, engaging (targets). They weren't doing their job as a soldier," he told an investigator. "You have an obligation as a soldier to, you know, do certain things, and just shooting isn't one of your responsibilities. You know, it has to be a known, likely suspect."

And so, in November 2004, acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee ordered up yet another investigation, by Jones.

The result was 2,100 pages of transcripts and detailed descriptions of the incident, but no new charges or punishments. The report, completed Jan. 10, 2005, was provided — with many portions blacked out or removed entirely — to the Tillman family. It has not been released to the public; the family found it wanting.

Pressed anew by the Tillmans, the Pentagon inspector general announced a review of the investigations in August 2005. And in March 2006, they launched a new criminal probe into the actions of the men who shot at Tillman.

___

The veteran Pentagon official who is overseeing these latest inquiries, acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble, has called the Tillman probe the toughest case he has ever seen, according to people he recently briefed.

Investigators are looking at who pulled the triggers and fired at Tillman; they are also looking at the officers who pressured the platoon to move through a region with a history of ambushes; the soldiers who burned Tillman's uniform and body armor afterward; and at everyone in the chain of command who deliberately kept the circumstances of Tillman's death from the family for more than a month.

Military investigators under Gimble's direction this year visited the rugged valley in eastern Afghanistan where Tillman was killed. It was a risky trip; the region is even more dangerous today than it was in 2004.

According to one person briefed by investigators, the contingent included at least two soldiers who were there the day of the incident — Staff Sgt. Matthew Weeks, a squad leader who was up the hill from Tillman when he was shot, and the driver of the GMV that carried the Rangers who shot Tillman, Staff Sgt. Kellett Sayre.

When the current inquiry began, the Pentagon projected it would be completed by September 2006. Now Gimble and the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as CID, are aiming to finish their work by December, say lawmakers and other officials briefed by Gimble.

CID is probing everything up to and including Tillman's shooting. The inspector general's office itself has a half-dozen investigators researching everything that happened afterward, including allegations of a coverup.

The investigators have taken sworn testimony from about 70 people, some of whom said they were questioned for more than six hours. But Gimble said investigators have been hindered by a failure to locate key witnesses, even some who are still in the active military.

Moreover, those who are now out of the Army, including three of the four shooters, can't be court-martialed. They could be charged in the civilian justice system by a U.S. attorney, but such a step would be highly unusual.

The law that allows it, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, has been invoked fewer than a half-dozen times since its enactment in 2000, said Scott Silliman, executive director of Duke Law School's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security and a high-ranking Air Force lawyer until his retirement in 1993.

The investigation, Gimble has said, is also complicated because of "numerous missteps" by the three previous investigators, particularly their failure to follow standards for handling evidence.

Gimble promised lawmakers in a series of briefings this fall that his investigation "will bring all to light." He has committed to releasing his detailed findings to key legislators, Pentagon officials and the Tillman family, as well as a synopsis to the general public, congressional aides said.

Gimble declined an AP request for an interview.

___

To date, a total of seven soldiers have been disciplined in Tillman's death.

Bailey, the 2nd Ranger Battalion commander who was camped out about two miles down the road with another unit the night Tillman died, surveyed the shooting scene hours after it occurred.

"I don't think there was any criminal act," he said. "It was a fratricide based upon a lot of contributing factors, confusion," he testified to an investigator in late 2004.

Some high-ranking officers, including Bailey, believe a lack of control in the field was to blame — starting with the platoon leader and including the soldiers who didn't identify their targets.

Bailey, who approved punishments for several of the soldiers, said he disagreed with the platoon's protests that they were "doing what we asked them to do under some very difficult circumstances, and that there were mistakes made but they weren't negligent mistakes."

He also testified that "three gunners were, to varying degrees, culpable in what had happened out there." And he said he wanted a fourth soldier involved — the squad leader, Baker — "out of the military."

Baker soon left the Army.

As for others involved:

_The three other shooters — Ashpole, Alders and Elliott — remained in the service initially but Elliott and Ashpole have since left. Elliott struck a deal with authorities; in exchange for his testimony to investigator Jones, the Army gave him immunity from prosecution "in any criminal proceedings."

_The platoon leader, Lt. David Uthlaut, was later bumped down from the Rangers to the regular Army for failing to prepare his men prior to the shootings, according to Bailey.

"They didn't do communications checks. They didn't check out their equipment. So they'd been there 24 hours," Bailey testified. "For example, some of the weapons systems weren't even loaded with ammunition. Many of the soldiers didn't know where they were going. They didn't have contingency plans."

A non-commissioned officer on the ground that day, however, testified that the unit carried out required communications checks.

Uthlaut was also wounded by fellow Rangers in the incident. He was awarded the Purple Heart and later promoted to captain.

_Saunders, the company commander, was given the authority to punish three soldiers — even though he himself was reprimanded for his own poor leadership. Both Saunders and Hodne received formal written reprimands for failing to "provide adequate command and control" of subordinate units — administrative punishments lighter than the Article 15s handed down to the soldiers who shot at Tillman. This obviously hasn't hurt Hodne's career; he has since been promoted.

"I thought it was (the commanders') fault, or part of their fault that we were even in this situation, when they're telling us to split up," said Ashpole.

Some lawmakers have warned that if this probe does not clear up all questions on Tillman's death, they may press for congressional hearings. Others have said Congress could call for an independent panel of retired military officers and other experts to conduct an outside probe.

Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat who represents the San Jose district where Tillman's family lives, has pressed the Pentagon for answers on the status of its investigations.

"I'm very impatient and at times cynical," Honda said. But, he said, the honor of the military — and the confidence of the public in the military and the government — are at stake.

"So if we pursue the truth and wait for it," he said, "it may be worthwhile."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061109/ap_on_re_us/inquest_for_a_warrior

Soldiers in 'guns for coke' scandal

September 24, 2006 BRITISH soldiers have been caught smuggling stolen guns out of Iraq and allegedly exchanging them for cocaine and cash on the black market.

Security officials confirmed this weekend that soldiers from the 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment are at the centre of a criminal inquiry by the Royal Military Police (RMP) into a “guns for cocaine” network.

Their alleged involvement with organised crime is a fresh blow to the British Army after a week in which a corporal from the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment admitted he had committed a war crime against an Iraqi civilian.

Although drug use is increasing in the armed forces, this is the first time military police have evidence that stolen weapons are being sold to pay for them.

One of the first soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment to have been arrested is alleged to have bought drugs by trading handguns, including Glock pistols, smuggled from Iraq to Germany on at least six occasions.

A security source said some of the weapons had been exchanged for about 50 grams of cocaine with a street value of £2,500. The drugs were sold to other British soldiers serving in Iraq.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2372277,00.html

Youtube

Iraqi Kid Runs For Water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9A_vxIOB-I

Lets make things clear, I have never been to Iraq let alone set foot out of the borders of the US. I received this video from someone who was over there. The person I got it from did not make the disk, they got it from a friend they met while over there. So there's no telling how many times this was handed down.

So stop sending me messages telling me to burn in hell. I will just ignore you and then block you.

If you work for the media and you want more info, I don't have it. What I do have are dozen of other short videos that where on the DVD that I received from the source. The other videos might shed some light and help answer some questions. Just put the pieces together and you might see the picture you're after.

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3563014/Iraq

Cowboy soldiers on notice over videos

September 18, 2006 DEFENCE chief Angus Houston has ordered a full investigation into video images posted on the internet showing skylarking Australian soldiers in Baghdad brandishing weapons. One of the clips posted on the popular website www.youtube.com shows an Australian Defence Force soldier pointing a pistol at a fellow Digger dressed in an Arab headdress, with other clips showing soldiers aiming their weapons at one another.

Air Chief Marshal Houston said yesterday that there was "no place in the ADF for members who behave in this way".

And army chief Peter Leahy flagged the possibility of soldiers being sacked.

"We will complete an investigation and then, put simply, I will be asking a question why these soldiers should remain in the army," he said yesterday.

"They will have an opportunity to put their case and it will be done under the correct administrative procedures. Everybody would expect me to ask that question: if you are that silly, what are you doing in the army?"

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20429796-601,00.html

Hamdania

Marine fights Iraq killing case

Corporal will face March court-martial

Marine Cpl. Trent Thomas (center) walked out of a courtroom at Camp Pendleton yesterday after pleading not guilty in the April 26 kidnapping and killing of an Iraqi man in Hamdaniya.

November 15, 2006 CAMP PENDLETON – A Marine accused of being a leader in the abduction and killing of an Iraqi man last spring pleaded not guilty yesterday and had his court-martial set for March 12.

Cpl. Trent D. Thomas affirmed his decision to fight charges that he helped orchestrate the execution of Hashim Ibrahim Awad on April 26 in Hamdaniya, a town west of Baghdad.

Standing at attention in a courtroom on the base, Thomas answered, “Yes, sir!” when the judge, Lt. Col. Tracy A. Daly, asked if he wanted to plead not guilty to charges of murder, kidnapping, housebreaking, larceny and other crimes.

With his wife sitting behind him, Thomas also said he would challenge assault charges arising from a separate incident in Hamdaniya.

Thomas is among eight members of the Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment implicated in Awad's death. Court documents portray him as one of four key players in the incident.

Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, the alleged mastermind, learned yesterday that he would face court-martial for the same two incidents involving Thomas. The decision was made by Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.

Three Marines and a sailor have finalized or announced plea agreements with the prosecution. In exchange for lighter sentences based on lesser charges, they have pledged to testify against Hutchins, Thomas and two other suspects who are expected to go through trial.

Shortly after midnight April 26, Thomas set off to help catch a suspected insurgent who supposedly killed four Marines with roadside bombs, according to court documents and testimony from previous court hearings.

After failing to find the purported insurgent, Thomas and three comrades went to a neighboring house and snatched Awad, prosecutors said. They allegedly bound Awad and forced him into a shallow hole. Then they and other members of the unit opened fire on him, the court documents said.

Expecting an investigation into the matter, the squad allegedly tried to make it look as if Awad were a terrorist who provoked a firefight.

After weeks of proclaiming their innocence, the accused began making deals with the prosecution in October.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos was the first to strike a plea agreement. He will serve less than a year in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy charges.

Pfc. John J. Jodka III and Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson have pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Jodka is scheduled to be sentenced today, while Thomas' sentencing is slated for Thursday.

Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Schumate Jr. has agreed to plead guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice during a court-martial next week.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20061115-9999-7m15thomas.html

Vets warn war stress will fuel atrocities

Increase is predicted as fighting drags on

November 13, 2006

Angry.

Fearful.

Frustrated.

Loyal.

Proud.

Ambiguous.

Iraq war veterans say a maelstrom of emotions engulfs U.S. troops fighting in the Middle East.

The 43-month conflict – nearly as long as the United States fought in World War II – increasingly raises basic questions: Can we win? Do we have enough troops to do the job? How long will it take?

Combat veterans say tensions arising from such questions are contributing to alleged atrocities for which troops are being tried.

They and military analysts predict that more war-crime cases will emerge as the Iraq conflict drags on and U.S. combat casualties continue.

A major case is playing out at Camp Pendleton, where eight service members are accused of kidnapping and killing a civilian in Hamdaniya, Iraq, last spring.

Last week, Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson became the third Hamdaniya suspect to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. He and another Marine, Pfc. John J. Jodka III, are scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

The three are expected to testify against their co-defendants.

“The world may be shocked that our troops could mow down an innocent man, but I'm not. If I served on a jury, I'd feel so much the hell they and other Marines go through in Iraq that I might not convict them,” said Jay Rodriguez of San Diego, who served two combat tours in Anbar province before leaving the Marine Corps in August.

Rodriguez, 22, and other Marines said morale is low in Iraq.

“When you see more buddies getting shot up and more kids blown apart for no good reason, you start praying for an end to the war,” he added. “Not re-enlisting was the easiest decision of my life.”

Military investigators and prosecutors contend that breakdowns in discipline and moral behavior led to war crimes on the urban battlefields of Iraq this year.

“Too many people have done too many tours in a war that has lasted far too long,” said Marine reservist Tony Pham of Corona, who suffered injuries in the December 2004 suicide bombing of a mess hall near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 22 U.S. service members and wounded 70.

“It is hard to be there for a whole year and not have some sort of breakdown. It's pretty much insanity over there,” said Pham, 30, now training to become a police officer after six years in the reserves.

The latest incidents being investigated include:

The Hamdaniya killing, which took place April 26. Naval investigators accuse the eight defendants of murdering Hashim Ibrahim Awad, then trying to disguise their act as self-defense against an insurgent planting a roadside bomb.

Four soldiers accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and then killing her and her family. The alleged crime occurred in March in Mahmudiya, a town 20 miles south of Baghdad, and involved members of the Army's elite 101st Airborne Division.

Four other soldiers from the same division being court-martialed on charges of plotting the deaths of three Iraqi detainees during a May raid on suspected insurgents near Tikrit.

A Camp Pendleton unit being probed on what, if proven true, would be the most notorious war crime in Iraq since the hostilities began with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The Marines allegedly shot to death 24 civilians a year ago in Haditha, in western Iraq, after one of their own was killed in an ambush.

U.S. military personnel are exasperated by protracted guerrilla warfare in Iraq, said veterans who fought there.

“The troops get fed up. They catch a guy and (Iraqi) intelligence lets him go,” said Marine Cpl. Carlos Gomez-Perez, 24, of El Cajon. “After being there a long time, it just stresses you out, and you just want to get even.”

Gomez-Perez was injured during the first battle for Fallujah in spring 2004. He received the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for combat heroism.

He and other service members said people who have never experienced combat tend to have unrealistic expectations in judging wartime conduct.

“I think the grunts would sympathize,” said Gomez-Perez, referring to the Hamdaniya case. “But if a military jury is made up of support troops or officers who've never seen any fighting, they will throw the book at (the defendants) because they have no idea what happens on the other side of the wire.”

The other side of the wire.

The phrase means going from a relatively safe encampment into danger-filled territory. In Iraq today, the entire country is on the other side of the wire, Pham said.

“Random mortar fire landed on our base all the time. . . . You don't know who the enemy is, you can't see him and he is smart, constantly adapting,” he said. “If a kid with a backpack (goes by) and you tell him to stop and he keeps going, what do you do? From a Marine's point of view, you take him out. From a civilian's point of view, that's murder.”

Such circumstances differ from the Hamdaniya case, in which the suspects allegedly plotted to execute the Iraqi civilian.

“Killing people over there and making it look like a combat action is easy to do, but that is not the reason we are there,” said Robert Talley, 45, of Temecula. The former Marine staff sergeant, who also saw action in Fallujah, retired last month after 22 years of service.

As disturbing as the underlying charges may be, courts-martial for alleged war crimes can ultimately have positive effects, said Charles Moskos, professor emeritus at Northwestern University specializing in military sociology.

“If we didn't have these trials, the world would say we're no better than a bunch of Nazis,” Moskos said. “We will always have people doing evil things in combat, particularly in a place like Iraq where you don't know friend from foe. But we need people to adhere to the highest moral standards, and the military is quite correct in punishing culprits behind such atrocities.”

As the Iraq war approaches its fourth anniversary, he said, Americans should brace themselves for more cases involving detainee abuse, slayings and other atrocities.

“The blurring of the killing line gets worse in Iraq the more casualties we suffer,” Moskos said. “The threshold of what is acceptable in such a killing place gets lower the longer we are there.”

Courts-martial are good for the public but bad for military morale, said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on the Military Organization at the University of Maryland.

“They impose upon the public a sense of reality about the true nature of war,” Segal said. “We have not been getting enough of that from Iraq, so for the country this is a healthy thing. But for soldiers and Marines, it probably has a demoralizing effect.”

Segal said people should understand that while “the veneer of civilization is very thin and tends to crack in war, the overwhelming number of men and women in uniform perform honorably and well.”

Rodriguez, the former Camp Pendleton corporal, said he hopes the Iraq conflict will end with some sort of redemption.

“Hundreds of thousands of proud men and women have risked their lives in this war,” he said. “Some good has got to come out of it. We can't be remembered for war crimes.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061113/news_1n13marines.html

Fourth Hamdania defendant reaches plea deal

November 13, 2006 NORTH COUNTY ---- The group that once stood together as the "Pendleton 8" now has only four of its members fighting charges they kidnapped and killed an Iraqi civilian last spring.

On Monday, the attorney for Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr. said his client has reached a plea bargain with prosecutors that will see him plead guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice on Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Shumate is the fourth defendant to reach a plea agreement in the April 26 death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

In exchange for Shumate's guilty pleas, murder, kidnapping and related charges originally filed against him will be dismissed, his attorney Steven Immel said.

Shumate admitted culpability in a statement he made to investigators on May 11, Immel said, and reaching the plea deal allow the Washington state native to serve an unspecified amount of time and move on with his life.

Later this week, two of Shumate's co-defendants who reached similar deals, Pfc. John Jodka III of Encinitas, and Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson of Tracy are scheduled to be sentenced for their role.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11/13/news/top_stories/111201191930.txt

Encinitas Marine pleads guilty in Hamdania killing

CAMP PENDLETON ---- An Encinitas native said Thursday that he and some of his Marine Corps squad mates gunned down a Iraqi civilian after the man scrambled out of the dirt hole they had tossed him in.

The admission from Pfc. John Jodka III came as he pleaded guilty in a Camp Pendleton courtroom to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice, charges arising from the shooting in the middle of the night of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad on April 26 in Hamdania, Iraq.

Jodka is the second of eight Camp Pendleton men accused in the slaying to plead guilty. He painted his platoon sergeant as the architect of the murder plot, a mission the sergeant revealed to the six lower-ranking Marines and a Navy corpsman he was leading on a combat patrol that evening.

"I agreed to the plan and agreed to go forward with it without objection," Jodka told Lt. Col. David Jones, the judge who presided over Jodka's three-hour court-martial.

The scheme laid out by Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, Jodka said, was to kidnap, kill and frame a man they believed to be an insurgent ---- a different man, it would turn out, than the one they killed that night.

Jodka testified that he knew what the men were doing was illegal.

"Civilians and noncombatants are not lawful targets," Jodka said when asked by the judge if he understood the U.S. military's rules of engagement on the night Awad was killed.

The 20-year-old sat rigidly with his fingers interlaced as he gave a rapid-fire, matter-of-fact description of what he saw during the shooting that landed him and seven squad mates in the Camp Pendleton brig this summer.

In exchange for the guilty plea, government prosecutors agreed to drop the original charges levied against Jodka, allegations that included kidnapping and murder.

"He is a good kid caught up in a bad situation," one of Jodka's civilian attorneys, Joseph Casas, said after the court session.

Sentencing for the young Marine is set for 8 a.m. Nov. 15.

"He will have a chance to talk about the pressures he faced in Iraq," Casas said.

The attorney declined to discuss the sentence laid out in Jodka's plea agreement.

One of Jodka's co-defendants, Petty Officer Melson Bacos, received a year in jail in his plea deal, which unfolded three weeks ago as Bacos admitted to charges of kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and make false statements.

Much of Jodka's testimony fell in line with the story Bacos told when he pleaded guilty on Oct. 6.

Jodka ---- who graduated from San Dieguito Academy high school in 2004 and headed to the University of California, Riverside for a semester before joining the Marines ---- was the youngest and least-experienced man accused in Awad's slaying. He had been a Marine for less than a year and in Iraq for four months when the shooting took place.

His father, John Jodka Jr, has been a vocal defender of his son. The elder Jodka joined his former wife and her parents in the first row of the courtroom as his son described the plot and the aftermath.

"I'm as proud of my son as the day he enlisted in the Marines," Jodka's father said after the hearing, choking back tears. "He stood up like a Marine."

'We got him'

Of the remaining six defendants, the cases for all but one have been ordered to trial. Hutchins, who has maintained his innocence through his family and attorneys, is awaiting word on whether he will be ordered to court-martial.

Jodka testified that he and the others were on patrol looking for insurgents planting roadside bombs ---- which the military calls IEDs, or improvised explosive devices ---- on April 25 when Hutchins called them together at about sunset.

Hutchins laid out the scheme, Jodka said, which was to kidnap and kill a man named Saleh Gowad, then to place his body in a roadside hole next to a stolen AK-47 and shovel. The men all agreed to take part in the murder plot, Jodka said.

Jodka told the judge his superiors had identified Gowad as an insurgent; Jodka said his squad had arrested Gowad at least three times previously, only to have him be released each time.

The plan was set into motion at about 1:30 a.m.

Four of the men ---- Cpls. Marshall Magincalda and Trent Thomas, Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington and Corpsman Bacos ---- all headed out to snatch Gowad from his home.

When Bacos testified three weeks ago, he said they could not find Gowad, so instead they grabbed a neighbor ---- Awad.

The four troops returned with their captive under a moonless sky, Jodka said.

"I overheard Cpl. Thomas tell Sgt. Hutchins that we got him and he's in the hole," Jodka testified, adding that the hole was about 75 yards away.

"At this point, you thought the individual was Saleh Gowad?" the judge asked Jodka.

"Yes sir," he replied.

'You know what to say'

According to the charges filed in June, the men bound the hands and feet of Awad ---- who was a retired Iraqi policeman ---- before shoving him into the hole.

Jodka said Hutchins ordered the men to open fire. But Awad stood up and scrambled out of the hole, which was about 2 1/2 feet deep.

"I don't know if he stood up after he was shot, or was shot after he stood up," Jodka said, soon adding, "I couldn't see the man in the hole at the time we were firing, sir. I only saw him stand up and run down the road to the north."

Jodka said he and the others kept shooting.

Afterward, Jodka said he was crossing the road to secure the area when he heard gunfire behind him.

"As I turned around, I saw Sgt. Hutchins, Cpl. Thomas and Lance Cpl. Pennington standing in the vicinity (of the gunfire)," Jodka said. "Cpl. Thomas and Sgt. Hutchins told me they were performing a 'dead check.' "

During his testimony on Oct. 6, Bacos said he saw Hutchins fire three shots into the man's head, and Thomas fire as many as 10 bullets into the man's chest.

Later, Jodka said, the men gathered on a roof.

"Sgt. Hutchins ... said to us if anyone were to ask what happened, the words he used were, 'You know what to say,' " Jodka said. "I took that to mean that if anyone asked, we were to say that we had seen this man approach with a shovel and begin digging and that he had engaged us and we lawfully engaged him."

Jodka told the judge that his actions discredited the Marine Corps "because of the notoriety of the case and the Iraq war."

"Anything that happens that gets reported becomes ammunition," Jodka said. "Anything like this would present an argument against the war."

Bacos and Jodka are being held in the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. The other defendants remain in the Camp Pendleton brig, where all the men were placed in late May after being returned to the U.S. from Iraq.

Following the hearing, David Brahms, a former Marine Corps general and now an attorney in private practice who representing Pennington in the Hamdania incident, said his confidence in securing his client's innocence is undiminished.

"I have never been more confident about my case after listening to this," said Brahms, who watched the Jodka court-martial from a base media center. "I have the toughest kid who has said, 'I don't want a deal, I don't even want to hear anything about a government offer.'"

As a result, Brahms said, "We are going to go ahead and plead not guilty and go to trial."

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/27/news/top_stories/1_01_510_25_06.txt

Encinitas Marine reported ready to plead guilty in Hamdania case

CAMP PENDLETON ---- An Encinitas Marine who until now has steadfastly maintained his innocence is expected to plead guilty next week for his role in the April 26 killing of an Iraqi man, the Marine's attorneys said Friday.

The deal would make Pfc. John Jodka III the second of eight Camp Pendleton men to admit to taking part in the kidnapping and slaying of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

Jodka, 20, is expected to plead guilty to assault and obstruction of justice, said Joseph Casas, one of the young Marine's two civilian attorneys.

Like his co-defendants, Jodka is charged with murder, kidnapping and a host of related offenses in Awad's death in the Iraqi village of Hamdania.

Casas declined to provide specific details on the sentence he expects his client to receive.

"I can't talk about any negotiations with the government, assuming there are any," he said.

Jodka is the youngest of the defendants and the lowest-ranking among the seven Marines and Navy corpsman charged in the case. He also was the least experienced, having been only four months into his first deployment in Iraq when the killing took place.

Through his attorneys and family members, Jodka has said from the beginning that he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.

His father, John Jodka Jr., a vocal critic of the prosecution, said he will forever be proud of his son.

"It's too soon for me to respond other than to say that I'm as proud of my son as the day he went in the Marines," he said. "He was the best damn PFC in Iraq."

Jane Siegel, Jodka's other hired attorney, said she believes the deal is a proper resolution for her client.

"I think that he wants to do the right thing, and I think he is," she said.

Jodka is scheduled to face a military judge in a Camp Pendleton courtroom at 9 a.m. Thursday. He will not be sentenced until some time before Thanksgiving, his attorney said.

The plea deal was first reported on the North County Times Web site early Friday afternoon.

On June 21, the Marine Corps charged the men with dragging the 52-year-old Awad out of his home, marching him about 1,000 yards, placing him in a makeshift dirt hole and shooting him to death.

They also were accused of placing a stolen AK-47 and a shovel next to the body of the retired Iraqi policeman and father of 14 children to make it appear he was an insurgent planting a roadside bomb, and then lying about it.

According to charges, Jodka was among five men said to have fired on Awad.

When Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos pleaded guilty on Oct. 6 to his role in the killing, he implicated two squad mates as triggermen: Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins, the squad leader, and Cpl. Trent Thomas, a fire team leader in the platoon.

Bacos said during his Oct. 6 court-martial that Hutchins fired three rounds into Awad's head and that Thomas fired as many as 10 bullets into the man's chest.

The corpsman's testimony came as he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and make false official statements. In exchange for his plea, he was sentenced to 12 months in the brig with credit for 142 days served and an agreement he testify for the prosecution.

The squad was out looking for another man, one believed to be an insurgent, Bacos said, but settled for Awad when they could not find their original target.

Bacos' testimony represented the first public airing of what may have happened. At all the other hearings for the accused men, the investigative officers overseeing the proceedings agreed to review the bulk of the evidence in private.

A Marine Corps spokesman declined to confirm the Jodka agreement.

"It would be inappropriate for me to comment on any potential negotiations between the government and defense counsel," Lt. Col. Sean Gibson said Friday afternoon.

The accused men are all members of Camp Pendleton's 2nd platoon of Kilo Company attached to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Jodka attended elementary and middle school at St. James Academy, a Catholic school in Solana Beach. He graduated from San Dieguito Academy high school in 2004 and spent an academic quarter at UC Riverside before deciding to enlist as a Marine.

In May 2005, Jodka shipped off to boot camp, and in January was sent to Iraq. He was there when he turned 20 in April ---- less than four weeks before Awad's death.

The military opened an investigation into the incident about a week after it occurred. By mid-May, the eight accused squad mates were under house arrest in Iraq.

The men were flown back to Camp Pendleton two weeks later and placed in the brig there on May 24. Two weeks ago, Jodka and Bacos were moved to the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

A second guilty plea could have a dramatic effect on the other cases, according to Georgetown University law professor and attorney Gary Solis.

"I hesitate to say it will spur more guilty pleas," Solis said, "but if I were one of the defense counsel I would be foolish if I didn't say to my client 'Why don't we look into the possibility of a plea deal? If we can get something like this, would you be interested?'"

A retired Marine who spent more than two decades as a military lawyer and judge, Solis said potential jurors in any trials for the remaining defendants were more than likely to be aware of the deals that prosecutors reached with Bacos and Jodka.

"Theoretically, it's supposed to have no effect because each case is tried individually. But practically speaking, it would be hard to ignore and difficult for a juror not to realize these other cases are going at a lower price."

He added that a second plea deal is not all that surprising given the apparent strength of the government's case based on statements each manmade to Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents in Iraq when confronted shortly after Awad's death.

"The government seemingly has such strong evidence, so for someone to flip and make a deal to testify for the prosecution is not exactly shocking," Solis said.

Diann Shumate, mother of co-defendant Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr., seemed discouraged when told of the news when reached at her home in western Washington state.

"They are really putting the pressure on these guys," she said, declining further comment.

Her son lost a bid for release from the brig last week and has reserved his right to enter a plea against the charges he faces.

Despite the guilty plea by Bacos and now the apparent Jodka deal, supporters of the men who have conducted rallies in front of the Camp Pendleton gate each Saturday since the summer are expected there again today, albeit in far smaller numbers.

A rally organizer, Christine Bruce, said this week that the demonstrators numbered about a dozen last Saturday compared with more than 100 when they first began months ago.

"People are sort of feeling now like there's just a lot that we don't know and we will just watch and see what happens," Bruce said.

Participants were disappointed when word of the Bacos deal came, she added.

"But we don't know his full story and his reasons for doing what he did," she said in reference to the corpsman.

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

Fast Facts

The following is the status of seven Marines and Navy corpsman charged

with killing a 52-year-old Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania on April 26. Each remain in custody in the brig at either Camp Pendleton or Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Petty Officer Melson Bacos, 21, Franklin, Wis.:

Pleaded guilty Oct. 6 to kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and making false official statements. In exchange, Bacos was given a 12-month jail sentence ---- with 142 days credit for time served ---- and an agreement that he testify for the government.

Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, 22, Plymouth, Mass.:

Article 32 investigative hearing conducted Monday. Awaiting hearing officer's recommendation to Lt. Gen. James Mattis as to whether he should be ordered to trial.

Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson, 23, Tracy:

Waived Article 32 hearing and has been ordered to trial.

Pfc. John Jodka III, 20, Encinitas:

Set to appear at a court-martial Thursday to plead guilty to assault and obstruction of justice, his attorneys said Friday.

Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, 23, Manteca:

Ordered to trial by Lt. Gen. Mattis. Pleaded not guilty during arraignment proceeding last month. Trial is set for Feb. 1.

Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, 22, Mukilteo, Wash.:

Waived Article 32 hearing and has been ordered to trial.

Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr., 21, Matlock, Wash.:

Ordered to trial by Lt. Gen. Mattis. Reserved the right to enter plea to charges at a later date during arraignment Friday. Trial is set for Feb. 12.

Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, 24, St. Louis, Mo.:

Waived Article 32 hearing and has been ordered to trial.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/21/news/top_stories/2_00_0610_20_06.txt

Medic pleads guilty, details killing of Iraqi

October 07, 2006 CAMP PENDLETON ---- The medic said they hatched the murder plan in an Iraqi palm grove as the sun set on a spring evening.

They were a squad on patrol in the village of Hamdania, Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos testified Friday, when they agreed to the plot: Seize a man widely believed to be an insurgent. Kill him. Stage the scene to cover it up. Lie about it when other Marines come around to investigate.

And if their target eluded them, the young Navy corpsman said, they would just grab someone else, anyone else. But the plan would remain the same: kidnap and kill an Iraqi.

Bacos' story detailing the events of the evening of April 25 and early morning hours of April 26 in Hamdania played out in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Friday. It was the first public account of an incident that led to murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against a platoon of seven Marines and the Navy corpsman assigned to take care of their emergency medical needs.

When the men couldn't find their intended target, Bacos told the court, they grabbed another man from another home in the middle of the night.

There came a moment after the kidnapping and before the slaying, the medic said, when "I knew what we were doing was wrong."

It was then, he said, that he asked a squad mate to free the bound man ---- but the Marine would not do it.

"I tried to say something, sir," Bacos told a military judge, "and I decided to look away."

For pleading guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping during his daylong court-martial Friday, and for agreeing to testify against his Camp Pendleton squad mates, Bacos will serve one year in jail, with credit for 142 days already served. He will not be discharged from the service.

Military Judge Col. Steven Folsom actually sentenced Bacos to 10 years and a dishonorable discharge, but the pretrial plea deal Bacos had in hand ---- which has already been approved by Camp Pendleton's commander, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis ---- precluded Folsom from handing down anything longer than 12 months.

In light of that, Folsom suspended the remainder of the 10-year sentence, provided that Bacos holds up his end of the deal.

'The only honorable thing'

The Navy corpsman is one of eight local service members accused in the slaying of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, who was not the targeted insurgent the squad was looking for that night. Instead, they grabbed Awad, a 52-year-old retired Iraqi police officer with a lame foot.

Nearly two months after Awad's death, the military charged the eight servicemen with murder, kidnapping and related offenses.

Before he learned his fate from the judge, Bacos read from a prepared statement, explaining why he decided to plead guilty and tell what he knew.

"I sincerely believe this is the only honorable thing to do, that to tell the truth is the only honorable thing to do," Bacos said. "I accept responsibility for my actions."

Bacos also apologized to the family of the slain Awad.

"I wanted to be part of the team, but there is no excuse for immorality," Bacos said. "I feel as if my honor is gone and I have let down others who have looked up to me. I apologize to my country, to the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps."

One of Bacos' prosecutors, Capt. Nicholas Gannon, argued for a sentence of up to 15 years and a dishonorable discharge, calling the crime "the worst kind of kidnapping there is, because the victim is never coming back."

Gannon told the judge that Bacos' remorse was "too little, too late."

"There was ample opportunity for Petty Officer Bacos to have this crisis of conscience," Gannon said, listing a number of chances Bacos had to stop his squad mates that night, including the time in which the men allegedly dragged the limping Awad from his home to the killing scene, some 1,000 yards away.

Bacos struck the deal with prosecutors earlier this week when he agreed to testify against the seven co-defendants.

The medic is the only one of the accused men ---- all of whom are members of 2nd Platoon, Kilo Company, with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment ---- to plead guilty to the charges.

News of his plea deal was first reported by the North County Times on its Web site Tuesday night.

The ambush mission

Bacos' story was dramatic, if his presentation was not. The soft-spoken Navy medic, in a solemn monotone, was barely audible as he gave his account.

He laid much of the blame on the squad leader, Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III.

Bacos said the squad was out on an ambush mission that evening when they staked out a position in a grove of palm trees.

Senior members of the squad huddled in the grove, he said, plotting the murder. The man who outlined the plan, Bacos said, was Hutchins.

He said Hutchins told the entire group that four of them would then go to a home, any home, seize a shovel and assault rifle, and stash it all in a safe spot so they could came back for it later.

They would then head to the home of Saleh Gowad ---- a man Bacos said was a known insurgent who had been detained and released three times prior ---- and seize him.

They would kill Gowad and stage the scene to make it look like the squad happened upon him while he was digging a bomb, with an AK-47 assault rifle at the ready.

And if they couldn't find Gowad, they would go to another house and grab someone else. The rest of the plan would stay the same.

There in the palm grove, Bacos said, the eight men all agreed. "We all said, 'I'm in,' " Bacos testified, adding he "didn't believe they would carry out a plan like that, so I brushed it off.

"When we moved in a second position under the tree, that's when it was set in stone."

And after the killing, the corpsman and the Marines agreed, should anybody ask what had happened, they would tell the same tale, Bacos said.

At 1:30 a.m. April 26, they put the plan in motion.

Bacos said he and three Marines, radio operator Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington and Cpls. Trent Thomas and Marshall Magincalda Jr., headed out.

They stopped at a house. Bacos said he snatched a shovel from outside the home; Magincalda and Thomas disappeared into the house, and returned with an AK-47 they had seized from the residents.

They made their way, he said, to Gowad's home.

"As we were getting ready to go inside, one of the family members woke up and saw us," Bacos said, adding that they told the person to "go back to sleep."

Then, he said, Cpl. Thomas "pointed at a house next door."

It was Awad's house.

Bacos said that he and Pennington stayed outside while Magincalda and Thomas went in. When they came out, they brought with them "an old male."

They bound his hands with plastic cuffs, the medic said, and walked toward a roadside dirt hole that would become the killing scene ---- but not before they retrieved the stashed gun and shovel. Bacos said he was the one who carried the stolen gun.

They finally reached the spot. One of them dug a hole. One of them bound Awad's feet. One of them gagged his mouth. They left him in the hole they had dug, a spot designed to look as if it were being carved out to hold a roadside bomb.

Bacos said he finally asked his buddies to stop.

"While they were finishing up ... I went up to the road and asked them if we should do this," Bacos said, adding that he backed off any protest after Magincalda called him a name.

"I felt they were gonna do what they were gonna do. l felt I could do nothing else," Bacos said, "so I continued on with the plan."

Bacos said he took the AK-47 and went back to a tree to join the other four men, including the squad leader.

"Sgt. Hutchins ordered them to get on line and point their weapons at the IED hole," Bacos said in reference to the military's shorthand for a roadside bomb. "The first shot was fired by Sgt. Hutchins."

Bacos said Hutchins then called the command operations center to request permission to shoot and "made it sound like we were in a firefight with this man."

The squad, he said, was "seven or nine meters" from the hole that was dug to make it appear Awad was planting a bomb.

Afterward, Bacos said, Magincalda told him to throw the AK-47 casings around Awad's body to make it appear the Iraqi had fired first with that weapon.

"That's where I witnessed Sgt. Hutchins fire three rounds into the man's head and Thomas fired seven to 10 rounds in the man's chest," he said.

When the shooting stopped, Bacos said, he was "shocked, sick to my stomach, my adrenaline was pumping."

After they reported having killed an insurgent, the Marines dispatched a "quick reaction" squad to investigate.

With that squad was another Navy medic, who Bacos said asked him what had happened. That was his chance to distance himself from the Marines.

"I said, 'I want you to remember something,' " Bacos said he told his fellow medic. "'We're different, we're not like these men.' "

Less than a week later, suspicions would be raised when Awad's family came forward.

Authorities responded quickly, assigning several agents to investigate the case and restricting the men to their base, Camp Fallujah. A short time later, they were ordered to return to the U.S. and were placed in the Camp Pendleton brig on May 24.

During their first month of confinement, the men were shackled when they left their single-man cells. That raised the ire of their attorneys, family members and supporters, and that restriction was subsequently lifted.

'Ready to move on'

Before Bacos was sentenced, prosecutors showed photographs of Awad's bloodied body and a 19-minute videotaped interview with the slain man's brother, an Arabic speaker whose words were translated into English by an interpreter.

"Just imagine if you lost one very close to your heart," said the 54-year-old man, whose name was not immediately available. "I swear if he did a bad thing, I wouldn't be sad today."

He said his brother, who had 11 children, had nothing against U.S. forces and had never participated in any action against coalition troops.

Bacos sat with his chin resting in his hands most of the time that the video was being played, occasionally looking down or away from the small screen set up at the defense table.

During the defense presentation, Bacos described his upbringing as the son of Filipino immigrants and said he signed up for a five-year Navy enlistment in August 2003, shortly after graduating from high school.

Following his training, Bacos was assigned to Camp Pendleton in early 2004, and in November of that year, he was in Fallujah for one of the major battles of the war.

When the court session ended, Bacos marched with his attorneys to a spot outside a media center established at Camp Pendleton to accommodate coverage of the Hamdania case.

The slight-framed Bacos, dressed in a crisp summer white Navy dress uniform, said that he wanted to thank supporters, wants to get this behind him and maybe go to medical school one day.

"I'm just ready to move on from this chapter in my life," he said.

His hired attorney, Jeremiah Sullivan, said the plea deal was a just resolution for his client that will allow him to "have a bright future."

More to come

Before that kind of future begins, however, he must serve his time and testify in the up to seven cases still pending should each go to trial.

On Tuesday, Bacos was moved from the brig at Camp Pendleton to Miramar to separate him from the other accused servicemen. Pfc. John Jodka III also has been moved to Miramar, where his father, John Jodka Jr., said he is being held in facilities that are "better suited for him."

The elder Jodka also said his son continues to maintain he is innocent of any wrongdoing despite being implicated by Bacos. He would not say if a plea deal is in the works.

"He is profoundly affected by what Corpsman Bacos has done, but he is an innocent Marine and he is not guilty of the charges brought against him," the father said.

Leanne Magincalda, the mother of Cpl. Magincalda, said she talked to her son Friday afternoon.

"He hurt really bad when he heard about Bacos," she said. "The hurt is what came through when I talked to him because he knows that what he (her son) did was not wrong. Despite what Bacos said, the truth is going to prevail."

Pretrial hearings for four of the defendants are scheduled to take place the week of Oct. 15. On Tuesday, Magincalda and Jodka pleaded not guilty when they were formally arraigned on murder, kidnapping and related offenses.

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwaker@nctimes.com.

Guilty pleas latest chapter in long line of events

CAMP PENDLETON ---- Guilty pleas submitted by a Navy Corpsman on Friday came after nearly six months of investigation into the alleged murder of an Iraqi civilian by Camp Pendleton troops. Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson Bacos testified in a military court Friday that the incident began on the evening of April 25, when his squad put together a plan to kidnap and kill an Iraqi. Since then, eight men have been charged with murder in the incident. Until Friday, the men stuck together with a story that they had done nothing wrong. Bacos' plea, while the latest chapter in the story, promises not to be the last.

The following is a time line of events in the case:

- April 26 ---- Alleged murder of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.Alleged incident took place in Hamdania, Iraq.

- May 1---- Preliminary investigation begins as officials learn of the alleged killing.

- May 7 ---- The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Navy's investigative branch begins a criminal investigation.

- May 12---- Eleven Marines and Bacos are removed from their unit and ordered back to Camp Pendleton, where they arrive May 24.

- May 25 ---- Seven Marines and Bacos are placed in pre-trial confinement at the Camp Pendleton brig.The additional four Marines are placed on base restriction.

- June 21---- Seven Marines and Bacos are charged with murder in connection with Awad's death.

- Aug. 30 ---- Pretrial hearings, known in the military as Article 32 hearings, begin for some of the men charged in the alleged killing.

- Sept. 25 ---- Officials order military trials, or courts martial, for Private First Class John J. Jodka, Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda and Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate.

- Oct. 4---- Jodka and Magincalda plead not guilty to the charges against them.

- Oct. 6 ---- Bacos, a Navy corpsman with the squad, pleads guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy. Murder charges are dropped. He is sentenced to a year in military confinement in exchange for testifying against seven others charged in the incident. In accordance with the plea deal, he is not discharged.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/07/news/top_stories/1_29_9910_5_06.txt

http://www.nctimes.com/special_reports/hamdania/

Six Marines charged with assault

The Marine Corps has filed charges against six Marines for an alleged April 10 assault on an unnamed Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania, officials announced Thursday.

Three of the charged are already in the base brig awaiting court action on charges they kidnapped and killed another Iraqi civilian on April 26.

The early evening announcement from Camp Pendleton identified the suspects in the April 10 incident as Lance Cpls. Saul H. Lopezromo and Henry D. Lever and Pfc. Derek I. Lewis. Also charged are Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas and Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr., who along with four other Marines and a Navy corpsman stand accused of premeditated murder in the April 26 death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps spokesman at Camp Pendleton, said more specific details about the alleged April 10 assault would not be available until this morning.

Victor Kelley, a civilian attorney hired by the Thomas family to defend him on the murder charge, termed the latest allegation "bull...." and said his client is innocent.

"It didn't happen," Kelley said in a telephone interview from his home in Birmingham, Ala. "Cpl. Thomas had nothing to do with that, and it is not going to be proven."

nctimes

Salahuddin province, Soldiers say orders were to kill all military-age Iraqis

Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military-age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

The soldiers took some of the men into custody because they were using two women and a toddler as human shields. They shot three of the men after the women and child were safe and say the men attacked them.

"The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray," Staff Sgt. Raymond Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name. That target, an island on a canal in the northern Salahuddin province, was believed to be an al-Qaida training camp.

Girouard, Spc. William Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey Clagett and Spc. Juston Graber are charged with murder and other offenses in the shooting deaths of three of the men during the May 9 raid.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/278480_soldiers22.html

Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, US soldiers charged in rape case

Four US soldiers have been charged with rape and murder over an attack on an Iraqi woman who was killed along with her family last March. The soldiers, on active duty in Iraq, are accused of conspiring with former soldier Steven Green to commit the crimes in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. Mr Green, who is being held in the US, denies the rape and murder charges. A fifth soldier serving in Iraq has been charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report the offences.

BBC
AP

Spc. Pleads Guilty in Iraq Rape, Murder

November 15, 2006

One of four U.S. soldiers accused of raping an Iraqi girl last spring and killing her and her family pleaded guilty Wednesday and will testify against the others.

Spc. James P. Barker agreed to the plea deal to avoid the death penalty, said his civilian attorney, David Sheldon.

The killings in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, were among the worst in a series of alleged attacks on civilians and other abuses by military personnel in Iraq.

Sgt. Paul E. Cortez and Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, both members of the 101st Airborne Division with Barker, could face the death penalty if convicted in the case in courts-martial at Fort Campbell.

The alleged ringleader, former Army private Steve Green, 21, pleaded not guilty last week to charges including murder and sexual assault.

Green was discharged from the Army for a "personality disorder" before the allegations became known, and prosecutors have yet to say if they will pursue the death penalty against him.

The indictment accuses Green and others of raping the girl and burning her body to conceal their crimes. It also alleges that Green and four others stationed at a nearby checkpoint killed the girl's father, mother and 6-year-old sister.

Barker has already given investigators vivid accounts of the assault.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/11/15/national/a084807S89.DTL

Iraq rape-slaying hearing begins

A preliminary hearing began Sunday for four U.S. soldiers charged in connection with the rape and slaying of an Iraqi female and the killings of her family earlier this year in Mahmoudiya, Iraq.

Three witnesses took the stand on the first day of the Article 32 hearing at Camp Victory near Baghdad, including an Iraqi army medic who gave graphic testimony about the state of the bodies.

Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spec. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard were all charged with conspiring with former Pfc. Steven D. Green to commit the crimes, the military said.

The four could face the death penalty, the military has said.

A fifth soldier, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, was charged with failing to report the rape and killings but is not alleged to have been a direct participant. He is not facing an Article 32 hearing at this time.

Green, who was discharged from the Army in May due an "anti-social personality disorder," faces rape and murder charges in federal court. He is being held in a Kentucky jail, where last month he was granted a three-month delay in his arraignment. He has pleaded not guilty.

All six are from the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) out of Fort Campbell, Ky.

The incident took place in March in Mahmoudiya, just south of Baghdad. A Justice Department affidavit filed in Green's case says Green and other soldiers planned the rape.

The affidavit says Green shot and killed the woman's relatives, including a girl of about 5 years of age; raped the woman; then fatally shot her. It says the incident took place "on or about March 12, 2006."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/06/iraq.main/index.html

Friends of former soldier charged in Iraq deaths recall unpredictable behavior

Medic testifies at U.S. troops' hearing

Investigator: Troops drank, golfed before Iraqi killings, rape

Torture and Prisoner Abuse

CACI: Torture in Iraq, Intimidation at Home

Dogged by serious allegations of human rights abuses in Iraq, a leading profiteer from the Iraq war engages in intimidation campaigns against journalists in America who seek to expose its practices.

Consider the unique problems faced by the corporate suits at CACI International, a defense contractor whose services have included "coercive" interrogations of prisoners in Iraq -- interrogations most people simply call "torture."

Think about the image problems a major multinational corporation faces after becoming inextricably linked with the abuses at Abu Ghraib, a firm whose employees have contributed to the iconic images of the occupation of Iraq -- the symbols of American cruelty and immorality in an illegal war. What can a company like that possibly do to protect its brand name after contributing to the greatest national disgrace since the My Lai massacre?

CACI's strategy has been two-fold: its flacks have distorted well-documented facts in the public record beyond recognition, and its senior management has lawyered up, suing or threatening to sue just about every journalist, muckraker and government watchdog who's dared to shine a light on the firm's unique role as a torture profiteer.

Lately, the company's sights have been set squarely on Robert Greenwald, director of Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, in which CACI plays a starring role. Greenwald has been in a back-and-forth with CACI's CEO, Jack London, and its lead attorney, William Koegel, during "months of calls, emails and letters" in what Greenwald calls a campaign to "intimidate, threaten and suppress" the story presented in the film.

"The threatening letters started early, trying to get us to back off," Greenwald told me. "We refused, and went back at them with a very strong letter saying, 'no, you're war profiteers and we won't be silenced.' Like any bully, they backed down when confronted. No lawsuit was filed-- they're a paper tiger."

The story they don't want told is of a federal contractor that, according to the Washington Post, gets 92 percent of its revenues in the "defense" sector. The Washington Business Journal reported that CACI's defense contracts almost doubled in the year after the occupation of Iraq began, and profits shot up 52 percent.

Yet CACI insists it isn't a war profiteer (a subjective term anyway), but was just answering an urgent call in Iraq. In a letter to Greenwald, Koegel wrote: "the army needed ... civilian contractors to work as interrogators" because the military didn't have the personnel, and CACI responded to the "urgent war-time circumstances" and "has no apologies."

But while the firm had experience in electronic surveillance and other intelligence functions, it, too, didn't have the interrogators. Barry Lando reported finding an ad on CACI's website for interrogators to send to Iraq, and noted that "experience in conducting tactical and strategic interrogations" was desired, but not necessary. According to a report by the Army inspector general, 11 of the 31 CACI interrogators in Iraq had no training in what most experts agree is one of the most sensitive areas of intelligence gathering. The 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib when the abuses took place, didn't have a single trained interrogator.

"It's insanity," former CIA agent Robert Baer told The Guardian. "These are rank amateurs, and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?"

That's one of many questions the company doesn't care to have asked. It's common for corporations to be fiercely protective of their brand's image, often obsessively so. That's true of multinationals selling soda pop or accounting services or military intelligence. But a company on a federal contract that rents out interrogators who become involved in a torture scandal that ends up splashed across the cover of Time Magazine -- that's the kind of thing that can be a real problem for the PR flacks back at corporate headquarters.

Colonel William Darley with the Military Review wrote of Abu Ghraib's impact:

We have never recovered from the Abu Ghraib thing. And it's likely all the time we're in Iraq, we never will. It will take a decade and beyond. I mean, those pictures, a hundred years from now, when the history of the Middle East is written, those things will be part and parcel of whatever textbook that Iraqis and Syrians and others are writing about the West. Those pictures. It's part of the permanent record. It's like that guy in Vietnam that got his head shot. It's just a permanent part of the history. That will never go away.

But CACI's tried hard to make it go away. The company sued Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes for $11 million for defamation, including $10 million in punitive damages. The supposed defamation? Rhodes read a portion of an interview with Janice Karpinski, the former Brigadier General who commanded the MPs at Abu Ghraib. The suit was dismissed with a summary judgment in April.

After the Institute for Policy Studies named CACI and CEO London in its annual "Executive Excess" report on CEO pay, they received "a blistering seven-page letter" from London himself, demanding that CACI be removed from the report. Later, Sarah Anderson, one of the study's co-authors said she got "a rather ominous email just saying that they were monitoring everything I wrote about them."

Then a blogger at Blogcritics got the "CACI treatment" for reporting on the Air America suit, as did the online media watchdog Newsbusters. When David Rubenstein, a columnist for the alternative paper Pulse of the Twin Cities, wrote an article about former Minnesota Congresman Vin Weber that mentioned CACI, it triggered, as Rubenstein would later recall, "a bombastic two-page single-spaced letter" from London with a "wholesale attack on my credibility." Runbenstein wrote of London's letter:

He doctors a quote from a newspaper interview. He quotes selectively from a Senate hearing. He constructs logical absurdities and lays them out as if they were pronouncements from an oracle. Apparently he thinks because he is the CEO of a $1.6-plus billion company that is willing to throw its weight around, he can say whatever he wants. It's a calculated strategy to shut down critics.

According to the New Standard, CACI has even characterized suits brought against it by human rights lawyers as slander. In a press release responding to a case brought by the Center For Constitutional rights on behalf of prisoners abused at Abu Ghraib, CACI's attorneys said the firm "rejects and denies the allegations of the suit as being a malicious recitation of false statements and intentional distortions" and called the allegations of abuse "ill-informed" and "slanderous."

After the article ran, The New Standard got a threatening letter (PDF) that quickly made its way around the internet.

CACI's problem is, ultimately, with reality. The firm claims that it was vindicated by the military's investigations into Abu Ghraib, including in a Washington Post editorial by Koegel in which he wrote that "no CACI employee has been charged with any misconduct in connection with interrogation work." It's technically true in that no CACI employee has faced formal charges -- it's unclear what jurisdiction civilian contractors in Iraq fall under, if they fall under any -- but the Taguba Report (PDF) said that CACI's Steven Stephanowicz had encouraged MPs under his command to terrorize inmates, and "clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse."

The irony is that by trying to spin Abu Ghraib and bully the media into ignoring the story, CACI has violated the fundamental rules of corporate crisis management. PR consultants who specialize in the field talk about the "Tylenol model" -- named for the pain-relief medication that faced a crisis in the 1980s after some of its bottles were found to contain cyanide. According to the experts, companies facing a crisis must "demonstrate concern, care and empathy" for the victims of its actions and should always "treat the media as a distribution channel, not as enemies." Rule number one is: "take responsibility."

Note: Robert Greenwald is a member of the board of the Independent Media Institute, AlterNet's parent organization.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/44506/

Colonel's leadership at Abu Ghraib questioned

Ex-intelligence officer testifies he was concerned about prison conditions

October 17, 2006 The former top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib said he began doubting his deputy's leadership ability shortly after the deputy, who is now charged with abusing detainees, arrived on the job.

Col. Thomas Pappas testified at Fort Meade today that he became concerned about the job performance of Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan and about conditions inside the prison after the International Committee of the Red Cross visited in October 2003, about a month after Jordan's assignment there. Pappas said Jordan did not immediately tell him that the Red Cross had objected to naked detainees inside Abu Ghraib.

Pappas also testified that Jordan had not immediately informed him of a Nov. 24, 2003, incident in which a detainee was shot and wounded by military police during a struggle after guards found a handgun in the prisoner's cell.

Pappas testified by telephone from Fort Knox today at Jordan's Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding. The hearing is to determine whether Jordan, the highest-ranking officer charged in the scandal, should be court-martialed for any of the 12 charges he faces. He faces a maximum of 42 years in prison if convicted of all counts.

On Monday, the court heard from Maj. Gen. George Fay, who wrote a report on detainee maltreatment at the prison in Iraq. Fay said Jordan lied to investigators about his knowledge of detainee abuse.

Fay said his investigation found that Jordan, a military intelligence reservist, was in charge of the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center despite Jordan's insistence to Fay that his director's title meant he was just a liaison between the center and superior officers.

"I believe Lt. Col. Jordan knew about some of those abuses and did not stop some of those abuses," Fay said under direct questioning by prosecutor Lt. Col. John P. Tracy.

Fay also said that Jordan "told us a story that was deceptive and it was misleading and he tried to avoid responsibility for his role at Abu Ghraib."

For instance, Fay said that when he asked Jordan if he had seen prisoners stripped naked, Jordan told him he had, but that the nudity had nothing to do with interrogations. Jordan replied that "it all had to do with the lack of clothing at the time," Fay said in response to a question from hearing officer Col. Daniel Cummings

Jordan, 50, of Fredericksburg, Va., is the highest-ranking officer charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and early 2004. Now assigned to the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va., he was director of the interrogation center from mid-September through late November 2003, when detainees were physically abused, threatened with dogs and sexually humiliated.

The Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center was created in September 2003 as part of a reorganization aimed at extracting more and better intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.

Eleven lower-ranking soldiers have been convicted of crimes in the scandal. Pappas was reprimanded and fined $8,000 for once approving the use of dogs during an interrogation without higher approval. Several other officers also have been reprimanded or relieved of their command as a result of the investigation.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-ghraib1017,0,1794973.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

Shays: Abu Ghraib abuses were sex ring

October 13, 2006 HARTFORD, Conn. - Republican Rep. Christopher Shays (bio), who is in a tough re-election fight, said Friday the Abu Ghraib prison abuses were more about pornography than torture.

The veteran Connecticut congressman said a National Guard unit was primarily responsible for the abuses although it was actually the 372nd Military Police Company from Cresaptown, Md., an Army Reserve unit.

"It was a National Guard unit run amok," Shays said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It was torture because sex abuse is torture. It was gross and despicable ... This is more about pornography than torture."

Shays sought to defuse controversy over his previous comments suggesting the Abu Ghraib abuses weren't torture but instead involved a sex ring of troops.

"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture," Shays said at a debate Wednesday.

"It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked," added Shays. "And they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."

The lawmaker's comments were in a transcript of the debate provided by his opponent, Diane Farrell. Shays' campaign, contacted Friday, did not dispute the comments.

Abu Ghraib is the Baghdad prison where abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers led to an international scandal. Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were brutalized and sexually humiliated by military police and intelligence agents in the fall of 2003. At least 11 U.S. soldiers have been convicted in the scandal.

Elected in 1987, Shays has distinguished himself as a moderate Republican who often breaks with his party, especially on his signature issue of campaign finance reform. But in the last week, his comments have echoed conservative talk radio.

Shays defended House Speaker Dennis Hastert's handling of a congressional page scandal, saying no one died like at Chappaquiddick in 1969 when Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) was involved.

"I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day," the embattled Connecticut congressman told The Hartford Courant in remarks published Wednesday.

"Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody," he added

Shays is waging a bruising re-election fight against Farrell.

"Once again, Chris is trying to back away from an earlier statement because it's politically expedient," Farrell said Friday. "It's typical Chris."

Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, who appeared at a news conference with Farrell on Friday, said people are going to jail because of torture at Abu Ghraib.

"It's not because it was some pornography ring. I'm surprised anyone would make that suggestion," Dodd said. "The suggestion that somehow this was something less than that is, again, almost bordering on the bizarre."

During the campaign stop, Dodd criticized a direct-mail flier from the National Republican Congressional Committee titled, "Diane Farrell: Coffee Talk with the Taliban," that had been sent to voters in the southwestern Connecticut district.

"This is absolutely the worst kind of politics in America," Dodd said. "The people who associate themselves with that party and these things must be held accountable."

Farrell has received money and an endorsement from the Council for a Livable World, a 44-year-old Washington, D.C., organization that works to reduce nuclear weapons. In the mailer, Republicans said the Council has a "leader who wanted someone to sit down and talk with the Taliban instead of just forcibly removing them from power."

In a statement Friday, Shays said the NRCC had crossed the line with the mailing and called on the Republican organization to "put an end to sending this type of garbage."

On its Web site, the council calls the NRCC claim bogus and says board member Roger Fisher, an expert on conflict resolution who teaches at Harvard University, "recommended combining carrots and sticks to persuade the government of Afghanistan to turn over Osama bin Laden."

Recently, Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist said during a trip to Afghanistan that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and he favored bringing "people who call themselves Taliban" into the government.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061013/ap_on_el_ho/connecticut_shays

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5I1rGFCVOs

Marine Sergeant Comes Forward to Report Abuse at Guantanamo Bay

The Pentagon says it is fully cooperating with a brand new investigation into allegations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay.

The allegations come from a Marine Corps sergeant, 23-year-old Heather Cerveny, who spent a week at the base in late September as a legal aide to a military lawyer representing detainees.

In a sworn affidavit filed with the Pentagon Inspector General, Sgt. Cerveny says she met several Navy prison guards at a club on the base where, over drinks, they described harsh physical abuse.

"One sailor specifically said, 'I took the detainee by the head and smashed his head into the cell door,'" Sgt. Cerveny tells ABC News in an exclusive interview.

She says she was "shocked" to hear several guards from different parts of the camp speak openly of mistreating prisoners.

"Everyone in the group laughed at all their stories of beating detainees," she recalled. "None of them looked like they cared. None of them looked shocked by it."

One of the guards "was telling his buddy, 'Yeah, this one detainee, you know, really pissed me off, irritated me. So I just, you know, punched him in the face.'"

Sgt. Cerveny says the guards also talked about taking away detainees' privileges "even when they're being good" and denying their requests for water. In her affidavit, she states she was told "they do this to anger the detainees so they can punish them when they object or complain."

When asked why, she claims a guard named Steven told her it's "because he hates the detainees and that they are bad people. He stated that he doesn't like having to take care of them or be nice to them," she says in the affidavit.

Sgt. Cerveny says the guards told her they worked at Camps 5 and 6. When she asked one of the guards about the consequences of their actions, "He said nothing. Everyone in the group was laughing."

They stopped laughing when they found out she worked for a marine defense lawyer.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/exclusive_full_.html

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general

November 25, 2006 MADRID (Reuters) - Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished"," she told Saturday's El Pais.

"The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorized these specific techniques."

The Geneva Convention says prisoners of war should suffer "no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion" to secure information.

"Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," the document states.

A spokesman for the Pentagon declined to comment on Karpinski's accusations, while U.S. army in Iraq could not immediately be reached for comment.

Karpinski was withdrawn from Iraq in early 2004, shortly after photographs showing American troops abusing detainees at the prison were flashed around the world. She was subsequently removed from active duty and then demoted to the rank of colonel on unrelated charges.

Karpinski insists she knew nothing about the abuse of prisoners until she saw the photos, as interrogation was carried out in a prison wing run by U.S. military intelligence.

Rumsfeld also authorized the army to break the Geneva Conventions by not registering all prisoners, Karpinski said, explaining how she raised the case of one unregistered inmate with an aide to former U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

"We received a message from the Pentagon, from the Defense Secretary, ordering us to hold the prisoner without registering him. I now know this happened on various occasions."

Karpinski said last week she was ready to testify against Rumsfeld, if a suit filed by civil rights groups in Germany over Abu Ghraib led to a full investigation.

President Bush announced Rumsfeld's resignation after Democrats wrested power from the Republicans in midterm elections earlier this month, partly due to public criticism over the Iraq war.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-11-25T164527Z_01_L25726413_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-RUMSFELD.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2

Haditha killings

Report suggests Marines culpable in Haditha killings

03 August, 2006 A probe into the killing of 24 Iraqis by a squad of Camp Pendleton Marines last November concluded the killings were carried out deliberately and apparently in violation of the rules of engagement, an unnamed Pentagon official was quoted as saying Wednesday.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/08/03/news/top_stories/8106191650.txt

beginning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings

outside Samarra, U.S. soldiers crossed the line in slayings, prosecutor argues

TIKRIT, Iraq -- A military prosecutor said Friday that four U.S. soldiers accused of murder in Iraq crossed the line and violated the "laws of war," arguing they freed three detainees, encouraged them to flee and then shot them down as they ran.

"Soldiers must follow the laws of war. That's what makes us better than the terrorists, what sets us apart from the thugs and the hit men. These soldiers did just the opposite," Capt. Joseph Mackey said in closing arguments at a hearing to determine if the four should face a court-martial -- and possibly the death penalty.

But a lawyer for one of the accused soldiers said the three Iraqi men "got exactly what they deserved" and urged a military investigator to recommend that murder charges filed against the four be dismissed.

Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard and Spc. Juston R. Graber are accused of murder in the killing of the three Iraqi men taken from a house May 9 outside Samarra.

The soldiers, all from the 101st Airborne Division's 187th Infantry Regiment, declined to testify at the hearing, relying instead on statements they made to military investigators.

By RYAN LENZ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

sexual assault on military personnel

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/274349_robert17.html

http://hometown.aol.com/milesfdn/myhomepage/

West Point cadet found guilty of rape, attempted rape

September 29, 2006 West Point — A senior at the U.S. Military Academy will spend the next eight years behind bars for the rape and attempted rape of two former cadets.

Lonnie Austin Story of Poplar Bluff, Mo., was found guilty after a four-day court-martial that ended yesterday.

He is the first cadet convicted of rape at the nation's oldest service academy since women were admitted in 1976. A previous case nine years ago ended in acquittal.

Cadet Story "hasn't just ruined his own reputation; he tarnished the reputation of West Point, where trust, loyalty, honesty and respect are supposed to mean the world," said Capt. Tom Song, an Army prosecutor.

"Cadets are supposed to live by (these ideals) so when they are tested they know what the right thing to do is. After four years at West Point, he missed the point all together," Song said.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/NEWS/609290319

Female Soldiers Treated 'Lower Than Dirt'

U.S. Army Specialist Suzanne Swift will spend her 22nd birthday tomorrow confined to the Fort Lewis base in Washington, where she is awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that she was sexually harassed and assaulted by three sergeants in Iraq.

Swift says the sergeants propositioned her for sex shortly after arriving for her first tour of duty in February 2004. She remained in Iraq until February 2005. "When you are over there, you are lower than dirt, you are expendable as a soldier in general, and as a woman, it's worse," said Swift in a recent interview with the Guardian.

When Swift's unit redeployed to Iraq in January 2006, she refused to go and instead stayed with her mother in Eugene, Oregon. She was eventually listed as AWOL, arrested at her mother's home on June 11, sent to county jail, and transferred to Fort Lewis.

"She's miserable and isolated," says Sara Rich, Swift's mother. "It's not good to have an idle mind while you're dealing with PTSD and sexual trauma. I want them to release her so I can get her the care she needs. I'm tired of waiting."

A colonel outside of Swift's chain of command is investigating the case, but Rich says she has been given little information with no time frame. "I believe they're trying to break her down using fear and intimidation."

http://www.alternet.org/story/38942/

Viet Nam War

My Lai massacre

November 12, 2006 It was on this day in 1969 that the reporter Seymour Hersh (books by this author) broke the story of the My Lai massacre, the most notorious war crime ever committed by American soldiers. One witness to the incident was helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson. Then he watched as an American shot a wounded woman lying defenseless on the ground. He saw several elderly adults and children running for shelter, chased by Americans. He was the first person to report the incident to his superiors, and he assumed that an investigation would follow. But nothing happened. It was another soldier, named Ron Ridenhour, who heard about the incident and vowed to make it public. He interviewed as many men who'd been there that day as he could, and when he got back to the United States he wrote a description of the massacre and sent it to 30 people, including his congressman.

The Pentagon initiated an investigation and it charged Lieutenant William Calley with the murder of unknown civilians. But there was no media coverage until freelance reporter Seymour Hersh heard about the incident from a lawyer who had been working with military deserters. He interviewed as many people involved as he could find, and wrote the first article about the incident. But no major magazine would publish it.

So Hersh turned to a tiny news syndicate called the Dispatch News Service, which offered the article to 50 newspapers around the United States and Europe for the price of $100. Thirty-six of the newspapers, including the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle, chose to run the article on this day in 1969. Hersh went on to write a total of five articles about the massacre and its aftermath, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/11/06/#sunday

Retrieved from "http://www.beachblogger.net/bwtm/index.php?title=Scandals%2C_Iraq_War%2C_Torture%2C_Rape_and_Abuse"

Categories: BWTM

 * National Guard Spc. Nathan B. Lynn, who was charged along with Sgt. Milton Ortiz, was cleared in the shooting death of an unarmed Iraqi man near Ramadi. He had faced a voluntary manslaughter charge.
-===Pending cases:===
+====Pending cases:====
 * Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Cpls. Marshall L. Magincalda and Trent D. Thomas, and Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, are charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in Hamdania, the same case in which Bacos, Jodka, Shumate and Jackson were charged. In addition to murder, the four remaining defendants are also charged with kidnapping, conspiracy and other offenses.

Scandals, Iraq War, Torture, Rape and Abuse

From Bwtm

Revision as of 20:58, 3 December 2006

Contents

Iraq War, Torture, Rape and Abuse

A look at criminal cases against U.S. troops stemming from the deaths of Iraqis since March 2003:

Convictions:

Cleared or acquitted:

Pending cases:

Valor medal process tarnished?

Friendly Fire

AP: Startling findings in Tillman probe

Soldiers in 'guns for coke' scandal

Youtube

Iraqi Kid Runs For Water

Cowboy soldiers on notice over videos

Hamdania

Marine fights Iraq killing case

Vets warn war stress will fuel atrocities

Fourth Hamdania defendant reaches plea deal

Encinitas Marine pleads guilty in Hamdania killing

Encinitas Marine reported ready to plead guilty in Hamdania case

Medic pleads guilty, details killing of Iraqi

Six Marines charged with assault

Salahuddin province, Soldiers say orders were to kill all military-age Iraqis

Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, US soldiers charged in rape case

Spc. Pleads Guilty in Iraq Rape, Murder

Iraq rape-slaying hearing begins

Torture and Prisoner Abuse

CACI: Torture in Iraq, Intimidation at Home

Colonel's leadership at Abu Ghraib questioned

Shays: Abu Ghraib abuses were sex ring

Marine Sergeant Comes Forward to Report Abuse at Guantanamo Bay

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general

Haditha killings

Report suggests Marines culpable in Haditha killings

beginning

outside Samarra, U.S. soldiers crossed the line in slayings, prosecutor argues

sexual assault on military personnel

West Point cadet found guilty of rape, attempted rape

Female Soldiers Treated 'Lower Than Dirt'

Viet Nam War

My Lai massacre

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