The Haditha Massacre: It Goes All The Way To The Top.

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Friday June 16, 2006 15:52 by Semper Fi

The horrific story of 1st squad, 3rd platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st MEF, USMC.

On Nov 19, 2005, a roadside bomb hit a patrol convoy of Marine humvees in Haditha, killing Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. The twelve men in 1st Squad led by Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, proceeded to storm nearby buildings throwing grenades into rooms and gunning down the occupants, innocent Iraqi men, women and children in cold blood.

What caused these men to kill innocents?
Was it the heat of battle?
No, I would suggest, it is directly linked to the ethos of the elite US Marine Corps.

The story begins as Kilo Company commanded by Capt. Luke McConnell was deployed in Iraq. The Company consisted of a HQ platoon, three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon(armed with machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons). Platoons in the regular US Army are usually commanded by the least ranking officer, a Second Lieutenant. But platoons in the Marines are also commanded by a core cadre of senior non-commissioned officers – enlisted men like buck sergeants and privates. Officers come and go, as they are promoted to higher commands, the lowest privates serve for a few years and return to civilian life as reservists - unless they are promoted to non-coms who remain the core of platoon. They control the real strings of power.
In the Marines it is not unusual for a senior noncom not an officer to be CO of a platoon and Kilo Company was no exception. The CO of Kilo’s weapons platoon was Gunnery Sergeant Michael J. Mella. Within days of arriving Iraq, Mella was severely wounded by a roadside bomb.

Noncoms are closer to the ordinary enlisted men than officers. Fire teams, squads, platoons and companies are like families and soldiers develop close brotherly almost loving bonds in combat. Fanaticism often germinates. The external world disappears. The motto is “Unit, God, Country.” The unit comes first. Soldiers will willingly give their lives for each other and jealously guard the reputation of their unit from other Marines. Soldiers of this type are more ready to kill without hesitation or deliberation.
What happened to Mella fuelled their rage and frustration.

3rd Battalion CO, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessnai, fond of quoting Gladiator and allowing his troops to wear togas and race in chariot races, was typical of the gung-ho hurraaah attitude of the Marines.

In 2004, 3rd Battalion participated in the two bloody battles of Fallujah. In early 2004, Gen. Mattis, CO of the First Marine Division (He is famous for explaining how much Marines like to kill and his bigoted views toward Islam and soon to be portrayed by Harrison Ford in a Hollywood movie) was in charge of destroyed the Sunni insurgent stronghold. A combined air and ground assault swept through the city but because Marines sustained heavy casualties at a critical time in the US. Presidential race when Bush was polling badly against John Kerry, the campaign ended prematurely and control of the city passed back to the Sunnis.

However once Bush won the election, in November 2005, the dogs of war were released.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were forcibly “evacuated” from Fallujah. Thousands more civilians certainly remained behind while thousands of Sunni fighters also dug in to fight the Marines who quickly set to work with relish.
Strike jets, helicopters and C-130 gunships bombed, rocketed and strafed the city rotary cannon fire. Heavy artillery pulverised insurgent strongpoints with high explosive shells or white phosphorous, heavy armoured bulldozers made paths for advancing Abrams tanks that blasted everything in sight.
The First Marine Regiment commander Col. Michael A. Shupp authorised his infantrymen to clear street after street, building by building, room by room, using grenades and automatic weapons and anti-tank weapons against civilian homes. Insurgents died valiantly in pitched battles armed with only AK-47’s and RPG’s, many more were summarily executed after they had surrendered and unknown numbers of civilians were slaughtered by bloodthirsty trigger happy Marines. The only close historical comparison would have to be the defeat of the Warsaw uprising by Waffen SS troops during WW2.

But for all their technology and firepower, the Marines and the puppet Iraqi Army still suffered about 500 deaths while they managed to kill only 1,500 insurgents. Most of the insurgents retreated in good order and regrouped to fight another day. Despite their utter failure the Americans claimed to have broken the back of the resistance!

The soldiers on the ground know otherwise and morale has collapsed among the US military in Iraq who have had to serve tour after tour with no end in sight. Convoys come under the constant attack even in supposedly friendly from friendly Shiites or “Sheetes” as the Marines all contemptuously refer to them.

The rage and frustration of the Marines is increasingly directed at the Iraqi population.

The death of Terrazas was the breaking point for the elite Kilo Company, a unit that arrived in Iraq hoping that their actions as Lt. Col Chessani liked to put it “would echo in eternity.”

They have got their wish after the Haditha massacre.

Democrat Senator Murtha, a decorated former Marine himself, called their actions “cold blooded”. He should know having served in Vietnam.

Major Gen. Richard F. Natonski, Mattis’s protégé and successor, as CO of the First Marine Division is continuing where Mattis left off, as his predecessor gets rich from his best selling account of the Fallujah battle in American bookstores.

Gen. Hagee, leader of the US Marine Corps and Lt. Gen John F. Sattler, the commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, both served in Vietnam, where the atrocities of US Marines against Vietnamese civilians or “gooks” as they liked to call them are documented by the government of North Vietnam.
Hagee, himself served as an officer in the First Marine Regiment during the war from 1970-1971 and as CO of the 1st MEF in the 1990’s.