Report about Marines hurts effort, Bush says

The president said that if laws were broken, punishment will follow.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
WASHINGTON -- President Bush and U.S. military leaders acknowledged Wednesday that a rampage that reportedly occurred in November by U.S. Marines that may have involved the killing of two dozen civilians -- including small children -- has had a negative impact on the U.S. war effort in Iraq.
The Pentagon detailed the deployment of 1,500 additional troops to Anbar, Iraq's largest and perhaps most restive province. It includes the town of Haditha, where Marines on patrol are alleged to have killed 24 Iraqis on Nov. 19 after one of their Marine colleagues was killed and two more were injured by a roadside explosive.
Though Time magazine reported on the shootings in March, the White House and Pentagon have only recently acknowledged the event, after a series of congressional briefings by Pentagon officers.
"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said Wednesday. "... If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment. ... I know this."
Pentagon leaders have confirmed that two investigations are under way: one to determine what happened at Haditha, the other to examine whether Marine Corps officers took part in a cover-up.
At the same time, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is also investigating the April shooting death of an Iraqi citizen by Marines in Hamandiyah near Baghdad.
The incident at Haditha involved soldiers from Kilo Company of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. The unit has returned to Camp Pendleton from Iraq.
What occurred
The massacre allegedly occurred Nov. 19 as a four-humvee convoy of Marines moved through Haditha, a town on the Euphrates River, just after 7 a.m.
The Marine Corps initially described the shootings as the result of a gunbattle that followed the detonation of a roadside explosive that killed one of the Kilo unit's Marines. But military investigators, responding to the Time findings and video taken by an Iraqi student, are examining whether the Marines in the humvees went on a rampage of revenge, killing Iraqi citizens in homes and in a taxi near where their colleague died.
White House spokesman Tony Snow pledged Tuesday that details of the military investigations would be publicly released when completed, probably in the next few weeks.
Though Bush did not directly address the impact the Haditha event could have on his Iraq strategy, unrest in Anbar province remains a primary concern for U.S. commanders.
Army Gen. Carter Ham said at the Pentagon on Wednesday that the Haditha shootings have affected the U.S. mission.
"Just simply the allegation that the U.S. military personnel may have acted improperly, it does have an effect," Ham said. "That's why this investigation is so important -- to find out what are the facts."
Ham said the additional troops would help secure the city of Ramadi, which has become a center of insurgent strife. But he said that the bulk of the security effort will be left to Iraqi forces.
Mistrust of U.S. forces
Although it is difficult to gauge the impact of an event like Haditha among Iraqis, its citizens had already expressed mistrust of U.S. forces.
"One problem that already exists in Iraq is that many Iraqis believe that the United States attacks civilians, that it's careless about its targeting and that it doesn't mind collateral damage," said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In Congress, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said that he will convene hearings to look at what happened at Haditha, but only after several internal military reviews are complete. That could delay the Senate inquiry several months.
In the House, Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has also committed to a hearing on Haditha, according to a spokesman.
So far, no charges have been returned against Marines in the investigations.
Three officers have been relieved of command recently at Camp Pendleton. The Marine Corps has not publicly described the reasons for that action. An attorney for one of the officers, Capt. James Kimber, said his client had nothing to do with Haditha and was actually in command of another company miles away at the time.
"He was India Company commander," said Paul Hackett, a Cincinnati attorney who served as a Marine major in Iraq and who recently made an unsuccessful run for Congress as a Democrat. "The Marines under investigation are Kilo Company. Unfortunately, as result of the events that took place in Haditha, when pressure started getting pushed down on the Marine battalion, Kimber was actually relieved of command as a company commander once he returned to the States in March."
Efforts to reach the two other officers relieved of commands at Camp Pendleton, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and Capt. Luke McConnell, another company commander, were not successful.