- 6 months ago
An examination of a 2005 massacre of unarmed civilians by Marine forces in Haditha, which led to one of the largest criminal cases against U.S. troops in the Iraq War.
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00:00Tonight's program contains graphic imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.
00:30The Haditha incident was called a massacre.
00:33These crimes are heinous crimes, terrible acts.
00:37I would even call what happened in Haditha a war crime.
00:42Marines accused of going on a rampage, killing Iraqi civilians in cold blood.
00:48They went into houses and killed children, women and children. 24 people they killed.
00:54The news saying that there were 24 innocent civilians killed, it's not accurate at all. My case proves it.
01:03In just a matter of weeks, military courts will decide.
01:07Haditha will be the case that causes the military to come to grips with the rules for insurgency combat in a way that they never have had to before.
01:17Tonight on Frontline, what really happened in Haditha?
01:24After 20 grand.
01:27Would've gotigtou occurred and sources ofines of the fun.
01:29Lastly, what did you do, mayری?
01:30Although, when you are in events, when you are staying competing with us,
01:35you would have that needless token control so that you trust Must not have or better.
01:40Yet you're here for sure.
01:53The story begins two and a half years ago in a town called Haditha in western Iraq near
02:00the Syrian border, on the banks of the Euphrates River.
02:07Before the war, it was known as a serene oasis, a popular vacation spot.
02:13But by the fall of 2005, nearly three years into the war, Haditha was war-torn and Sunni
02:20insurgents were in complete control.
02:26Insurgent traffic of foreign fighters, fighters from Syria, from places outside of Iraq, came
02:32through the Haditha triad and then down into points south and east like Fallujah and on
02:37into Baghdad.
02:40Control of Haditha was vital in order to protect a massive dam that provided electricity to
02:45all of Anbar Province.
02:51To retake Haditha, the Marine Corps sent in some of its most battle-hardened men, Kilo
02:56Company, from the legendary 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, the Thundering 3rd.
03:023rd is one of the most decorated battalions in the Marine Corps.
03:06Their history goes on back through Vietnam, Korea, World War II, all the major conflicts
03:12that this country's been in, 3rd has been involved in.
03:17Iraq was no different.
03:19Barely a year before they were sent to Haditha, Kilo Company had taken another city back from
03:24insurgents in the most intense urban combat Marines had faced since Vietnam, the 2nd Battle
03:30of Fallujah.
03:32Fallujah was like the OK Corral, the Wild Wild West.
03:36When I first joined the Marine Corps, that's what I thought I'd do as a Marine.
03:40Here's the enemy, they're right there, go get them, just going house to house.
03:45The Marines took control of Fallujah after four weeks of heavy, close-quarter combat.
03:51And Kilo Company had been in the thick of it all.
03:55Kilo Company in Fallujah performed magnificently.
03:59They took heavy casualties, but they just kept going and going and going.
04:05Now, many of the same men were primed to face a similar situation in Haditha.
04:13All our intel reports and everything had initially said this was going to be, you know, a full-on
04:18like Fallujah-type style, clearing the city and whatnot, and so we were all amped up.
04:26But they were surprised by what they found.
04:29The night the battalion set up to go push through Haditha and start clearing it, all I
04:35heard was crickets.
04:39No one attacked us, no one did anything.
04:41We just found an abandoned school and then we sat up there.
04:46The Marines renamed the school Sparta and made it their base of operation.
04:54Sergeant Frank Wutterich, who would later be at the center of the Haditha incident, was
04:58on his first deployment to Iraq.
05:02Sergeant Sherratt was one of his men.
05:05To us, Haditha seemed like a very shady town.
05:08I mean, nothing really major happened, but just the way the people reacted with us and
05:16the way we tried to help them and we tried to do all this for them, and they just seemed
05:21to not like us the whole entire time.
05:24The insurgents that Kilo Company expected to fight had seemingly disappeared.
05:32When 3-1 entered the city, insurgents largely fled.
05:37We received intelligence that they had gone to the south to regroup and plan.
05:41And we expected that, unlike Fallujah, where they went toe-to-toe with Marines, they were
05:46not willing to do that in Haditha.
05:49For the first three weeks, their deployment was eerily quiet.
05:56The Marines uncovered IEDs and weapons caches, but there was hardly an insurgent to be seen.
06:04That was about to change.
06:07Intelligence officers say they began to notice increased enemy activity in the town.
06:12The presence of foreign fighters in town was an immediate indicator that something was
06:17in the works and that planning for a major attack was underway.
06:23That major attack would occur on November 19, 2005, a day the men of Kilo Company will
06:32never forget.
06:42The day began, like so many other days in Kilo Company's deployment, with a routine mission.
06:49Sergeant Frank Wutterich would lead a convoy escorting a fresh unit of Iraqi soldiers
06:53to a nearby checkpoint and bringing food to fellow Marines.
06:58Staff Sergeant Wutterich and his squad resupplied us that morning, probably about 6.30 or 7.00 or so.
07:05I remember a couple of my friends were in the same squad, so I was talking to them.
07:10My squad was on post at the time.
07:12They were getting ready to come off post.
07:15It was early in the morning.
07:16It was early in the morning.
07:17Everybody was tired.
07:18I was just talking to them, and then they ended up leaving.
07:25Sergeant Wutterich was in charge of four vehicles and 11 Marines.
07:30Among them were Lance Corporals Miguel Terrazas, Justin Sherratt, and Stephen Tatum, Corporals
07:37Sanic Dela Cruz and Hector Salinas, and Private First Class Umberto Mendoza.
07:47At about 7 a.m., as they drove west, a terrific explosion rocked Wutterich's convoy.
07:55Justin Sherratt was in the lead vehicle.
07:57I heard a large explosion from behind me.
08:01I turned around to assess what happened.
08:05I remember seeing the second Humvee and the third Humvee.
08:09I remember calling that out, and then I don't remember seeing the fourth one.
08:14The fourth Humvee had been destroyed.
08:17Two Marines were wounded, and the driver, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, was literally
08:21torn in half by the explosion.
08:24He was one of the greatest Marines I've ever known.
08:27But you don't have time to mourn.
08:29You don't have time to do any of that.
08:33Wutterich and some of his men engaged a car they deemed hostile near the scene of the
08:38explosion, killing its five occupants.
08:42They then advanced on these nearby houses, after identifying them as the source of incoming
08:48fire.
08:50What the Marines could not have known was that their actions that morning would come to haunt
08:54them.
08:56But at the time, the fight continued.
09:01In July, the battalion's command directed an unmanned aerial vehicle, called Scan Eagle,
09:08to monitor the fighting.
09:10This is some of the actual footage.
09:12The UAV video feed that we obtained shortly after the attack took place showed the insurgents
09:18fleeing the scene.
09:19Showed them getting into a car.
09:21Showed them moving north out of the area.
09:24Major Jeffrey Dinsmore was the battalion's intelligence officer in Haditha that November
09:30day.
09:31This is the first time he's spoken to the press about what happened.
09:35Simultaneously throughout the morning, other squads from Kilo Company were coming under
09:42IED attack as well.
09:44They were either discovering IEDs or they were coming under small arms fire attack at various
09:49locations in the city.
09:50It became apparent that this was the major insurgent re-infiltration of Haditha that we
09:55had been expecting.
09:57Joseph Hammond's squad was dispatched to clear an insurgent safe house and came under intense
10:03attack.
10:04November 19th was the main day in the deployment.
10:08That one sole day was pretty much how fighting was done in Fallujah.
10:13It was that intense.
10:14It was close combat the whole time where you're inside a house and five, six feet away from
10:21someone that's shooting back at you.
10:24That was the day of days in Haditha.
10:40By the end of the day, at least nine marines had been wounded and Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas
10:46had been killed.
10:49The death toll for the Iraqis was far higher.
10:53The marines estimated 12 insurgents had died.
10:57In addition, 15 civilians had been killed, including four women and six children.
11:06To the marines at the time, the civilian deaths seemed unremarkable in the overall violence
11:11of that day and their experiences over multiple deployments in Iraq.
11:16You knew that some people were killed, but I mean, compared to the time, the deployment
11:21before that, I mean, people, I mean, it just happens.
11:27The following day, the Marine Corps issued a press release so inaccurate it would eventually
11:34lead to allegations of a cover-up.
11:37It made no mention of women and children killed in their homes by marines.
11:42Instead, it simply said, a U.S. Marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from
11:48the blast of a roadside bomb.
11:52When I first saw it, it seemed a little bit unusual.
11:56That's a pretty high number of civilian casualties for your typical IED or improvised explosive device.
12:02Still, newspapers went with this version, and the story quickly faded.
12:07It didn't get a whole lot of attention, I think because there were a lot of things going
12:11on, both in Iraq and around the world.
12:15And as time went on, it faded.
12:18Certainly, we weren't following that particular case very closely.
12:24And Kelo Company also moved on.
12:28I think the unit sort of forgot about what had happened.
12:31They saw reports, early reports, about that press release in publications that were overseas.
12:38And they dismissed them.
12:39They sort of said, well, that isn't quite right.
12:42But I think they figured, you know, the media doesn't always get it right.
12:45Sometimes those press releases aren't exactly right.
12:47And they didn't see it as problematic.
12:50The Marines celebrated Thanksgiving in their Haditha camp.
13:01And saluted their fallen comrade, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, in a traditional memorial
13:06service.
13:07Lance Corporal Terrazas, he was just the ultimate fun-loving guy.
13:10He was one of those guys that was just, if you needed a quick laugh, or somebody to go
13:15talk to, he was always there, and whatever he'd do or say would just make you laugh.
13:21But the Iraqis had not finished grieving for their dead, as the Marines learned earlier
13:26in a meeting with the Haditha City Council.
13:34About a week after the incident, the City Council met with the U.S. side, Major Hyatt from Civil
13:40Affairs and the commander of Haditha, Colonel Chassani.
13:46Many demands were presented in this meeting.
13:49And among those demands was opening a formal investigation into the incident.
13:54They were upset about what had occurred.
13:55They were upset that the Marines killed innocent people that day, from what they were saying.
14:02In a formal complaint, the City Council referred to the incident as a crime of war and called
14:09the killings in the houses and at the white car, executions.
14:14But the Marine Command gave little credence to these allegations.
14:18They strongly suspected that the City Council was backed by terrorists.
14:24The City Council demonstrated through actions and through information that we had received
14:29from various sources that their allegiances largely lied, not all of them, but largely lied
14:34with the insurgency.
14:36No investigation was launched at that time.
14:39And the Marines thought that they had put the incident behind them.
14:44It became more of a meeting of what can both sides do to, you know, this incident occurred.
14:51We'll deal with it the best that we can.
14:54And from here on out, though, what can we both do to prevent these incidents from happening
14:58in the future?
15:03But not everyone in Haditha would be satisfied.
15:06In fact, this video of the aftermath of the house clearings by Wateridge and his men was
15:11filmed by an Iraqi determined to get the story out to the rest of the world.
15:16A member of our organization is from Haditha, and by chance, during the incident, he was visiting
15:30his family there.
15:31So, he was able to film some of the scenes.
15:34Abdul Rahman Al-Mashadani is the co-founder of the Hammurabi human rights organization,
15:40based in Baghdad.
15:42Abdul Rahman Al-Mashadani is the co-founder of the Hammurabi human rights organization,
15:43based in Baghdad.
15:44When I first watched the film, I couldn't finish it, because it was a horrible tragedy.
15:49Abdul Rahman Al-Mashadani says they tried to get the tape into the hands of the Arab media,
16:03but no one would pay attention.
16:05Finally, he showed it to Time Magazine's Baghdad correspondent, Tim McGurk.
16:16The video was horrifying, and I said, well, who did this?
16:19This is terrible.
16:20I sort of figured it was, you know, fighting the usual sort of butchery that goes on between
16:25Sunnis and Shias, and they said, no, it was the U.S. Marines, based in Haditha, that carried
16:32this out.
16:35I was stunned, and I didn't believe it.
16:39So the next thing I did is I just did a simple Google search about the events of November 19th.
16:46McGurk found the Marine press release dated November 20th, saying that the civilians had
16:50been killed by a roadside bomb.
16:54So I thought back, and I remembered several things.
16:57I remembered, first of all, the bodies of the people, the women and children, they were
17:02in their pajamas.
17:04And Iraq, it's a very traditional society.
17:07People don't go wandering around on the streets in their pajamas to get hit by an IED.
17:14There were also purported eyewitnesses on the videotape.
17:19Their stories, too, were completely at odds with the Marine's press release.
17:22MAGURK WONDERICK ,
17:33MAGURK WONDERICK ,
17:34MAGURK WONDERICK ,
17:49if commanders might be trying to conceal
17:51deliberate killings of civilians by the Marines.
17:55He wrote to the local Marine press officer.
18:00Why were the Marines unable or unwilling
18:03to distinguish women and children in daylight
18:05at close quarters from potential terrorists?
18:08Is there any investigation ongoing
18:10into these civilian deaths?
18:12And if so, have any Marines been formally charged?
18:16The officer who wrote back, Jeffrey Poole,
18:18was incredulous.
18:20To be honest, I can't believe you're buying any of this.
18:23There is no investigation.
18:26This falls into the same category
18:28of al-Qaeda in Iraq propaganda.
18:32We know that the Hammurabi video is insurgent propaganda
18:35because intelligence information received
18:38almost immediately after the events of November 19th
18:42indicated that a video had been recorded
18:45by an insurgent propagandist.
18:47But McGurk thought he had good reason
18:50to believe the claims on the tape.
18:52I'd worked with the Hammurabi people before on other stories,
18:56and I think that it's wrong to smear them as pro-insurgent.
19:00These are people who were carrying out human rights work in Iraq.
19:04The Marines offered to transport McGurk to Haditha
19:07to look into their side of the story.
19:09McGurk declined, saying his editor felt it was too dangerous to go into Haditha.
19:18But his questioning produced results.
19:21There was an indication that because of his inquiries,
19:25the highest echelons of command were concerned about the events of November 19th.
19:32Within a month, a full-scale investigation was underway.
19:37As part of the Navy, the Marine Corps falls under the jurisdiction
19:41of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
19:44The NCIS committed more than 60 agents to the case.
19:48To dedicate 65 or so agents full-time to one investigation
19:54is probably one of, but if not the largest effort we've put forth
19:59in an investigation in history since I've been on,
20:01which is about 25 years.
20:05But some in the Iraqi government weren't interested
20:07in the number of agents.
20:09They wanted to play a central role in the investigation.
20:13We presented a complete file to the American side
20:19about what happened in Haditha.
20:22Less than a week later, the Americans told us
20:26that we could not be part of the investigation.
20:29But they would keep us updated.
20:35Just as the NCIS started its investigation,
20:42Time published Tim McGurk's story about the incident.
20:46But it ran on page 34 and got little play in the media.
20:51Because it was in Iraq, because it was in the war zone,
20:54it didn't get a whole lot of bounce, as they say in journalism.
20:57There weren't a whole lot of follow-ups
20:59to the Time magazine story initially.
21:01Just a few months later, America and the world
21:04did take notice when Congressman John Murtha,
21:07a staunch opponent of the war, citing unnamed military sources,
21:11made a shocking charge during a press conference.
21:14It's much worse than reported in Time magazine.
21:19There was no firefight.
21:22There was no IED that killed these innocent people.
21:25Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them.
21:30And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.
21:33To the Kelo Company Marines who were listening,
21:36Murtha's charges were outrageous.
21:39Hearing the speech from Murtha saying that they just went out
21:41and with all the pressure on them,
21:43that they just went out and killed all these people
21:45and that there was no IED and there was no firefight that day,
21:47I mean, it's a slap in the face.
21:49It's disgusting when a guy that was loved by everybody
21:55in the whole company, almost the whole battalion,
21:57was killed by an IED that day.
21:59And then my own squad got into a firefight,
22:02which about 9 out of 12 people got injured that day
22:05from grenades or from being shot at.
22:07I mean, and saying that there was no firefight,
22:09it's just, I mean, it's a straight slap in the face.
22:12They killed the people in the taxi.
22:14There was no firing at all.
22:16For the next two weeks,
22:18Murtha made the media rounds.
22:20He made the point initially to show the stress
22:24that U.S. troops were under over in Iraq
22:27and he was using it more as a pitch to bring U.S. troops home.
22:32Draw us a picture of what happened at Haditha.
22:34Well, I'll tell you exactly what happened.
22:36One Marine was killed and the Marines just said,
22:39we're going to take care.
22:41They don't know who the enemy is.
22:42The pressure was too much on them.
22:44His comments certainly got our attention at the Washington Post.
22:47So we, when you have a member of Congress saying,
22:52and a Marine himself,
22:54I mean, someone who has served in the military previously,
22:57coming out and calling an event cold-blooded murder,
23:00I think that was the point
23:02where people really started looking at this case.
23:05Time magazine revisited the story in June 2006,
23:09this time placing it on the front cover.
23:12It was put on the front cover because by then
23:14it had turned into a political story.
23:16Murtha had come out with his statements about it
23:19and I think it also came at a time when there was an increasing malaise
23:24in the way the war was being carried out
23:28and why we weren't winning.
23:30And following on the heels of Abu Ghraib,
23:33this was one example in which the Americans were going about it wrong.
23:36How can you win the hearts and minds of the people
23:38when suddenly there's an incident in which 24 civilians die?
23:43Some are comparing the Haditha killings to the Vietnam massacre at My Lai.
23:48Haditha led the news for weeks,
23:51and soon became synonymous with other outrages in the Iraq war,
23:55like Abu Ghraib.
23:56Haditha, in my judgment,
23:58is a metaphor for how the press unconsciously,
24:03being in opposition to a war,
24:05will take an incident and simply by reiterating it and reiterating it
24:10build it into something that it wasn't.
24:14We're supposed to be fighting this war for democracy
24:17and yet something like this happens, it sets us back.
24:19It's as bad as Abu Ghraib, if not worse.
24:22Obviously the allegations are very troubling for me.
24:25As political pressure mounted that summer,
24:27the NCIS issued its internal report.
24:31The NCIS report, which is thousands of pages long,
24:35came back with recommendations for the command
24:38that there were crimes committed.
24:40At the same time, an independent army investigation
24:44looked into the actions of senior officers.
24:46What they found was that there was a pervasive feeling
24:49from the unit on the ground all the way up to the top levels
24:53of the Marine Corps leadership in Iraq,
24:55that Iraqi lives were not as important as the lives of Marines.
25:00The death of innocent civilians are an unfortunate byproduct of war.
25:05And the press release at the center of the controversy
25:08was also scrutinized.
25:10It had been written by Marine Captain Jeffrey Poole,
25:13who said he'd just assumed any civilians who had died
25:16had been killed by insurgents.
25:19The report from the field that day had not specified
25:23who had shot the civilians.
25:25Poole told investigators,
25:28it was all part of the attack,
25:30and that was what we were showing,
25:3215 Iraqi civilians killed by an insurgent attack.
25:36The army investigation also found that,
25:39there was a tendency at all levels of command
25:42to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers,
25:45as relatively routine.
25:47The report was extremely critical of people as high as,
25:53at the two-star general level,
25:55saying that they should have noticed that something was amiss,
25:58they should have asked questions,
25:59they should have started an investigation right away.
26:02Based on the findings of the investigations,
26:05various charges have been preferred against four Marines
26:08relating to the deaths of the Iraqi civilians on 19 November 2005.
26:13Also, charges have been preferred against four Marines
26:17for failure to properly report and or investigate
26:20the deaths of the Iraqi civilians.
26:22Finally, in December 2006,
26:25the Marines were officially charged,
26:27making the incident one of the most significant criminal cases
26:30since the start of the Iraq War.
26:33Facing multiple charges of unpremeditated murder
26:36for the killings of the Iraqi civilians
26:39were Staff Sergeant Frank Wutterich,
26:42Sergeant Sanic Dela Cruz,
26:45Lance Corporal Justin Sherratt,
26:48and Lance Corporal Steven Tatum.
26:52Two other Marines involved in the killings that day,
26:55Lance Corporal Umberto Mendoza
26:57and Corporal Hector Salinas,
26:59were not charged.
27:01Both eventually were granted immunity
27:03in exchange for their testimony.
27:07And the commander of the entire battalion,
27:09Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chassani,
27:11was charged for failing to report the incident
27:14and for not thoroughly investigating the events
27:17of November 19th.
27:19Three officers under Chassani were also charged
27:22with offenses related to the aftermath of the incident.
27:29Up in the morning with the rising sun.
27:32Up in the morning with the rising sun.
27:34Up in the morning with the rising sun.
27:36Up in the morning with the rising sun.
27:38The military court proceedings are underway
27:40at Kilo's home base, Camp Pendleton in Southern California.
27:44The process began in the spring of 2007,
27:50with preliminary hearings to determine
27:52whether any of the Marines would face court-martial.
27:54After more than a year of having their stories
27:59played out in the media,
28:01the accused Marines told their version of events
28:03to an investigating officer.
28:05No recordings were allowed in the courtroom.
28:10So here, read by actors,
28:12are excerpts of the unsworn statements
28:14of Wooderich and Tatum.
28:16Saturday, November 19th, 2005,
28:19started off as a normal day
28:21for 1st Squad 3rd Platoon Kilo Company
28:24in Haditha, Iraq.
28:32Although the mission was something we had conducted
28:34and accomplished dozens of times before,
28:36today would be extraordinarily different.
28:45The day was chilly and the sky was clear.
28:48The city was ominously quiet.
28:53I changed the normal route of North
28:55on River Road and West on Haditha Road.
28:58This is one decision I will always regret.
29:04An explosion, louder than anything I have ever heard,
29:09rocked the entire convoy.
29:11I remained calm.
29:13I continued to drive west
29:15as my A driver started to scream.
29:17The 4th vehicle got hit.
29:19I made my way back to the other side of Chestnut
29:22and stopped my Humvee.
29:24Wooderich's squad called for backup
29:26and began to search for the trigger man.
29:28The first thing I noticed outside my vehicle
29:33was a white four-door sedan to the southwest.
29:37Corporal Dela Cruz was shouting in broken Arabic
29:40and using expletives to the military-aged males
29:43who occupied the white car.
29:44His weapon was at the ready as it should have been.
29:47They were not complying and, in fact,
29:50were starting to run in the opposite direction.
29:52I took a knee in the road and fired.
29:55Engaging was the only choice.
29:58The threat had to be neutralized.
30:01Wooderich said he and Corporal Salinas
30:04then heard small arms fire from a house nearby.
30:07And at the order of a superior
30:09who had just arrived on the scene,
30:11he took Corporal Salinas,
30:12along with Lance Corporal Tatum
30:14and Private First Class Mendoza,
30:16to clear that house.
30:17I advised the team something like,
30:20shoot first and ask questions later
30:22or don't hesitate to shoot.
30:24I can't remember my exact words,
30:26but I wanted them to understand
30:28that hesitation to shoot would only result
30:30in the four of us being killed.
30:32For purposes of the hearing,
30:36this house was referred to as House One.
30:39It was the first time
30:42Wooderich had ever been under fire.
30:44He had never cleared a house in combat.
30:47But two of his men were veterans of Fallujah,
30:50Lance Corporals Justin Sherratt
30:52and Steven Tatum.
30:54Like Wooderich,
30:56Tatum presented his story
30:57of what happened that day.
30:59I had been told by my squad leader
31:01to treat the house as hostile.
31:03Before even entering the house,
31:07shots had already been fired.
31:09Upon entering the house,
31:11I heard an AK-47 racking.
31:15Tatum said he threw a grenade
31:17into the room that he thought
31:18the sound was coming from.
31:20The grenade just went off.
31:22Dust was in the air.
31:23Smoke was in the air.
31:24Couldn't really make out
31:25much more than targets.
31:27By the time they cleared the first house,
31:29three men, two women,
31:31and a child were dead.
31:34Next, Wooderich said he heard
31:36one of his Marines shout,
31:38there's a runner.
31:40And he ordered his men
31:41to the next house,
31:42house two.
31:43The only place he said
31:44the runner could have gone.
31:46Again, we used grenades
31:47and cleared the rooms by fire.
31:52It was dark.
31:53Couldn't really see a whole lot.
31:55I never took more than two or three steps
31:57in either one of the rooms.
31:59The engagements maybe lasted five,
32:01six seconds.
32:02Just seconds.
32:03But five more children
32:05and two more women were dead.
32:07Wooderich said that while he cleared
32:09houses one and two alongside his men,
32:12he doesn't remember firing his weapon.
32:15But he maintained that his team,
32:17Tatum and two others,
32:19had acted appropriately
32:20despite what happened.
32:22I am not comfortable with the fact
32:24that women and children died that day.
32:26I know I might have had a part in it.
32:28I don't know if my rounds impacted anybody.
32:31That is a burden I will have to bear.
32:35The Marines searched many houses that day,
32:39about 10.30 a.m.,
32:41more than three hours after the IED explosion.
32:44Sherratt said they went to investigate
32:46suspicious activity near this house,
32:48later referred to as house three.
32:51The only thing that were there
32:52were women and children,
32:54which to us, you know,
32:55that was kind of weird.
32:56We asked them in Arabic,
32:57you know,
32:58if they had any weapons,
32:59you know,
33:00where the men are at.
33:02The Marines said they were told
33:04the men were in this house,
33:06now referred to as house four.
33:08There was a room in front of me
33:10with a door open,
33:11and I saw a Iraqi with an AK-47 pointed at me.
33:16So I raised up my squad automatic weapon,
33:19and when I pulled the trigger,
33:21the weapon jammed.
33:22So I pulled back and took cover behind the wall.
33:28I pulled out the nine-millimeter pistol
33:29that I was carrying at the time,
33:31fired a shot, and killed him.
33:33And to the left, there were three Iraqi males,
33:36and the first one had an AK-47.
33:39So I just opened fire on all three of those males
33:42until I ran out of bullets.
33:44And then Staff Sergeant Woodridge came in
33:46and finished the job.
33:49The four men killed by Woodridge and Sherrod
33:52were all brothers,
33:53members of the Ahmed family.
34:01Sherrod's case was the first to be considered
34:03by the investigating officer.
34:05He was charged with three counts
34:07of unpremeditated murder for the killings in house four.
34:11The central question was whether his actions
34:14were appropriate under the rules of engagement,
34:17the ROE, the conditions under which U.S. forces
34:21are allowed to use deadly force.
34:23The rules of engagement have one fundamental underpinning,
34:27and that is that every soldier or Marine
34:29has the right to self-defense.
34:31That's the first and foremost element
34:34of the rules of engagement.
34:35And every Marine and soldier can tell you that.
34:38They have a little card,
34:39and they can tell you what the card says.
34:42Well, I just...
34:43I just wonder if a lot of those...
34:44Gary Myers, Justin Sherrod's attorney,
34:46has been practicing military law
34:48since arguing the My Lai case
34:50during the Vietnam War.
34:52Yeah, I'm curious...
34:53He contended Sherrod's actions were justified
34:55under the rules of engagement
34:57because Sherrod said he acted in self-defense.
35:00He saw an AK-47 being raised at him,
35:06and he reacted instantly and with precision,
35:09as he is trained to do.
35:11But Iraqi witnesses from House 3 told a very different story,
35:19a story of deliberate execution-style killings.
35:23The prosecution said the Iraqi witnesses declined to testify in person.
35:29But Frontline has obtained some of this testimony, videotaped in Iraq,
35:34which the prosecution used to build its case against Sherrod.
35:38The witnesses swore the Marines took everyone out of Houses 3 and 4,
35:43forced the men to give up their weapons,
35:46separated them from the women and children at gunpoint,
35:49and led them into House 4.
35:52After the Marines left,
35:53the witnesses said they found their male relatives, grouped together, dead.
35:58The prosecution declined Frontline's request for an interview,
36:03as they have been barred from making statements outside of the courtroom.
36:08But at the hearing, they laid out their case against Sherrod.
36:13That what the witnesses described was, in fact, a cold-blooded execution,
36:32not an active fight, as Sherrod had claimed.
36:36But forensic evidence introduced by the defense cast doubt on the Iraqi witness accounts.
36:43The scene of the death of these four men was completely inconsistent with an execution.
36:51The location of rounds in the walls and the windows indicated a dynamic situation,
36:56that these men were moving, and therefore the notion of execution-style shooting simply evaporated
37:04when you just looked at the forensics of the room.
37:07It could not have happened that way.
37:10Despite the forensic evidence,
37:12the prosecution recommended that Sherrod's case proceed to a court-martial.
37:21The next hearings addressed the difficult questions surrounding the shootings earlier in the day,
37:26in the night,
37:27immediately following the IED explosion.
37:34Staff Sergeant Wutterich and Sergeant De La Cruz were charged with murdering the five Iraqi men
37:39who exited the white car.
37:43They said the men were running away.
37:46Under the rules of engagement that existed on 19 November 2005,
37:50military-aged males who were fleeing the scene of an attack,
37:53of an IED attack,
37:54were considered insurgents or supporters of insurgents
37:58and could be engaged as threats.
38:03But Iraqi soldiers on the scene had told investigators that the Marines
38:06had lined up the men and shot them while they were kneeling.
38:13In the hearing, however,
38:14the NCIS's own forensics expert dismissed this idea,
38:19saying the evidence showed the Iraqi men could not have been lined up in that way.
38:25But by this time, the prosecution had a new weapon.
38:30Before the hearings began,
38:32Sergeant De La Cruz changed his story
38:34after reaching a deal to testify for the prosecution
38:37in exchange for immunity.
38:40The other accused Marines were outraged.
38:42It hurt.
38:45It was one of the most devastating things in my life,
38:47knowing that Marines that I went to combat with,
38:50Marines that I was right next to when bullets were flying,
38:54it tore me apart on the inside.
38:59In his new version of events,
39:01De La Cruz said Woodrich alone shot the men as they stood still,
39:06some with their arms raised.
39:07He said,
39:10those men are not running, sir.
39:12Some of their hands are interlocked.
39:14One of them drops, lifeless, in a backward position.
39:18I saw Staff Sergeant Woodrich kneeling, shooting at their direction.
39:22But the forensics expert, using photographs along with this video taken by Scan Eagle shortly after the shootings,
39:33concluded that there must have been at least two shooters, undermining De La Cruz's new account.
39:38The defense also argued that Woodrich did have reasons to be suspicious about a white car.
39:46On 19 November, the Marines had received intelligence briefings that there was quite a bit of insurgent activity in Haditha,
39:53and to be on the lookout specifically for a white car that would be carrying a number of insurgents who were known to be operating in the area.
40:03But it turned out these men had no weapons or explosives,
40:08and the prosecution argued that Woodrich had fired without provocation, in violation of the rules of engagement.
40:15The investigating officer then turned his attention to houses one and two, where women and children had been killed.
40:22What the courts are trying to determine is whether or not these shooters had a reason to legitimately feel a threat while inside those houses,
40:31that they did what they were supposed to do as Marines, that they followed their rules of engagement,
40:37that they did what they had been trained to do.
40:40What prosecutors will be arguing is that they didn't follow their rules, they didn't do what they were supposed to do.
40:47What the squad was supposed to do was clear the area in the direction of House One.
40:53Sergeant Woodrich was given that order by his platoon leader, First Lieutenant William Callup,
40:59after hearing small arms fire coming from that house.
41:04Exactly how he would clear the area, however, was up to him as sergeant.
41:09The sergeant will simply be told what the Marines like to call intent orders,
41:15and they'll say, my intent as the commander, the platoon commander or something, is to clear those houses.
41:20Then he just leaves it up to the sergeant to do his own job.
41:23He doesn't try to tell him how to do it.
41:25Sergeant Woodrich's team would clear House One Fallujah-style,
41:28thinking it was not necessary to identify the occupants of the house as they believed it was hostile.
41:37A local cameraman working for Frontline in Haditha talked to two of the eyewitnesses from this house about what they saw.
41:44Some were shot and shot.
41:50A km
41:52Some were shot , they shot , nobody fueron shot
41:56but I and my brother and my brother wereUSE to implore their Sh.''
41:59He shot and shot .
42:01Since the one who killed us, He shot, shot in our residence.
42:05He shot from outside to our house,
42:09But then the daughters cast in our house,
42:11and then they hit me and hit me and hit me and hit me and hit me.
42:22The central question about the actions of the marines in this house
42:26focused on whether it should have been considered hostile in the first place.
42:30The prosecution argued that the marines had violated their rules of engagement
42:34by not positively identifying targets before using deadly force,
42:39saying that in theory, an entire house could not be considered hostile.
42:45But the defense rejected that claim,
42:48providing examples where the marines had been trained to do just that.
42:52I think that the marines have an argument that they went into these houses
42:57following their rules of engagement, declared the houses hostile,
43:00and believed at the time that they could kill everyone inside
43:03because they were deemed a threat.
43:05What investigators saw after the fact is what caused them to ask the questions,
43:10the fact that a number of women and children were killed,
43:12that there were no weapons in the house,
43:14and it caused them to ask, were these marines too aggressive?
43:18Were they going on a rampage after the bomb killed a member of their unit?
43:27The hearing also addressed the question of House 2,
43:30which posed greater challenges for the defense.
43:33The marines said they had continued into that house
43:36in pursuit of a suspected insurgent.
43:38However, the prosecution continued to argue
43:41the marines should not have used aggressive house-clearing tactics.
43:44They presented evidence that there should have been enough light
43:48to identify the women and children before shooting.
43:51Tatum said he did not see the women and children in House 2,
43:57and only fired because he was coming to the aid of a fellow marine
44:00who was already shooting.
44:02Wutterich maintained that, as in House 1, he did not remember firing,
44:08and he said he had not seen the women and children in House 2
44:11before they were killed.
44:13However, a television appearance on 60 Minutes,
44:17months before his hearing, established that in the first house,
44:21he might already have seen dead women and children
44:24before proceeding to House 2.
44:26There may have been women in there.
44:28There may have been children in there.
44:34Still, Wutterich's defense team argued that he and his men
44:44had cleared House 2 in accordance with the rules of engagement.
44:47The need to press on in battle does not dissipate
44:52once collateral damage has been discovered.
44:56In other words, if Sergeant Wutterich,
44:58in moving through and exiting House 1,
45:01saw that some people who appeared to have been innocent may have been killed,
45:07that doesn't mean that the threat has been eliminated.
45:09And he's required, in order to protect his Marines,
45:12to pursue the threat until it's neutralized.
45:15And that's what he did.
45:18I don't care who you are.
45:19If you're a Marine or an Army soldier and you're in the attack,
45:24but you haven't lost anybody and you see women and children, stop.
45:28Bing West is a retired Marine who has followed the case closely
45:33and has written about the complexities of fighting an insurgency.
45:37I've seen a lot of things on the battlefield that have convinced me,
45:41when the insurgent is embedded just wearing civilian clothes
45:47among all the civilians,
45:49it's inevitable that you're going to get into morally wrenching situations
45:54when a firefight starts.
45:57In the hearings, the defense argued that Kelo Company
46:00had not been trained for such complicated situations
46:03in the midst of a hostile house clearing.
46:07The training that the Marines got and applied in Editha
46:11was the training of a blunt force.
46:14If a house is declared hostile, you clear it.
46:16That's blunt force.
46:19If they were a SWAT team, they would have approached the house
46:22in a very different way,
46:25perhaps identified themselves in a different way,
46:28perhaps waited out the insurgents in a different way.
46:32But Colonel John Ewers, a Marine judge advocate
46:35who was involved early on in the Editha investigation,
46:38says that all Marines are trained to distinguish civilians
46:41from insurgents in a hostile environment.
46:44I think that our Marines were appropriately trained
46:46for the mission that we were trying to accomplish.
46:49The idea that because we're a blunt force instrument
46:53that we're ill-prepared to do that is a cop-out.
46:56I mean, the point is that we're Marines.
46:58We're the toughest guys on the block.
47:00We know how to defend ourselves.
47:02We know how to aggressively take people down.
47:05And to suggest that we can't do the shades of gray in between
47:09is a cop-out, and I think it sells Marines short.
47:13In the end, two years after the incident,
47:17the commanding general in charge finally made his decision
47:20and called for courts-martial for both Woodrich and Tatum,
47:24but not on murder charges, and not for the killings in House 1.
47:32Woodrich's charges were reduced to voluntary manslaughter
47:35for killing two women, five children, and a man in House 2,
47:40and killing at least one man at the white car.
47:46Tatum's charges were reduced to involuntary manslaughter
47:49for killing two children in House 2.
47:55Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chassani also faces court-martial
47:58on charges of willfully failing to investigate the incident
48:01and not accurately reporting it up the chain of command.
48:05and the commanding general dismissed all charges.
48:08Chassani is fighting these charges,
48:10saying the record will show that he did appropriately report
48:12the incident to his superiors.
48:14And in Justin Sherratt's case,
48:18the investigating officer found that he had justifiably perceived
48:21a threat and acted within the rules of engagement,
48:25and the commanding general dismissed all charges.
48:28Al-Mashadani was following the news from Iraq.
48:33I'm not satisfied with the outcome,
48:36because the punishments don't come close
48:38to the crimes committed in Haditha.
48:41We expected that the soldiers would be exonerated.
48:44From the first moment, we expected that.
48:46I thought the soldiers would be let off or claim insanity.
48:50All of these excuses we expected from the beginning.
48:55After more than two years of investigating the case,
48:59none of the Marines are charged with murder,
49:02a reflection of the complexity of the situation on the ground.
49:07There are very difficult questions about rules of engagement,
49:12about what the intent of these Marines was on that particular day,
49:17what they were responding to and how they responded.
49:21While the case initially was portrayed by Iraqi civilians
49:26as a massacre, by Congressman Mirtha as killings in cold blood,
49:32what the investigation has revealed since
49:34is that this was far more complicated than some execution.
49:39It was far more complicated than a squad of Marines going on a rampage.
49:47In the summer of 2007, while the Marines charged in the Haditha case
49:57remained at Camp Pendleton,
49:59the rest of Kilo Company began its fourth deployment in Iraq.
50:05But this time around, they said the statement of the mission
50:08from the top was different.
50:10Push to the next house!
50:12Root out the insurgents, and at the same time,
50:17win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
50:22We get ROE class after ROE class after ROE class,
50:26and it's like we're told, you know, you can't do this,
50:29don't, you know, look for this.
50:31You know, it's a big deal this time.
50:33The hearts and minds is a really big deal this time around.
50:36And I understand where they're coming from, I do.
50:40But it's just kind of hard for me to, you know,
50:44kind of shift over to that.
50:46You have to stay with him as much as he has to stay with you.
50:49I'd say it's more difficult now.
50:51Is the weapon in working order?
50:52It's like chasing a ghost, and you never know,
50:55is that day going to be the day, you know,
50:58that they actually decide to face you toe-to-toe.
51:01As the men of Kilo Company carried out their mission day after day,
51:08the shadow of Haditha was inescapable.
51:13It is now policy that if an Iraqi civilian is killed,
51:19an investigation must take place.
51:22It does make you second-guess yourself.
51:26I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Leavenworth,
51:29but I also want to bring all my boys home safe.
51:38I think there are our Marines, you know,
51:41who would hesitate for too long or not make the right call
51:44based on a, you know, fear that they might be investigated.
51:48Remember, don't walk on the roads.
51:50We do hesitate. That's not a bad thing.
52:03That it really does take an extra moment,
52:09and assuming that risk for the future reward
52:13of avoiding some mistakes
52:15and maintaining that relationship is worth it.
52:18The biggest takeaway from Haditha for me was
52:24this human element where the junior subordinate leader
52:28might be a 19, 20-year-old corporal
52:32who has to make a decision in a split second
52:35or in a series of seconds that will affect,
52:38where he does a calculus of balancing the safety of the Marines,
52:43the accomplishment of the mission, the threat level of the enemy,
52:46and collateral damage, and all these other things that are going on in his mind
52:50that he has to make within absolute seconds, without hesitation.
52:54So the difference between, you know, murder and killing,
52:57he is judge and juror in that split second, in that environment.
53:01And, I mean, that's the moral authority that these young men have.
53:20There's more of this report at Frontline's website,
53:38where you can watch the full program again,
53:41read interviews with General David Petraeus,
53:45Marine Commandant General James Conway,
53:49and Lance Corporal Justin Sherrod.
53:52Explore what experts have to say about Haditha's significance
53:55and how the media handled the story.
53:58Two investigations, one of the killing, one of the cover-up.
54:01Take a test on rules of engagement given to Marines during training.
54:05How would you react to the same situations?
54:09Then join the discussion about this program at PBS.org.
54:19Next time on Frontline World.
54:28In Pakistan, a mysterious Taliban cleric leading a rebellion,
54:32and the man who tried to stop him.
54:34This could have been nipped in the bar two years ago,
54:38and now you needed to send in 20,000 troops.
54:41And in Russia, Vladimir Putin is leaving the presidency.
54:45But how will he hold on to power?
54:47These stories and more on the next Frontline World.
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