Haditha

1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in attack on US convoy.
2) US military initially says bomb also killed 15 Iraqi civilians.
3) Eight insurgents killed after attacking convoy. US later says the 15 civilians were not killed by bomb, but shot accidentally in battle.


1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in bomb attack on convoy of four Humvees. Troops then "go on rampage".
2) At roadblock, four students and taxi driver killed.
3) Eight people killed in one of three houses.
4) Seven killed in a second house.
5) Four brothers put in wardrobe and shot dead in a third house.


Unlike Jack Murtha, who is gleefully pointing to this incident as evidence that he believes advances his political agenda and who is obviously choosing to believe the worst of our American service personnel, I would rather wait until the investigation is concluded.

Rather than theorize and speculate as to what happened I would just point out that Iraqi insurgents have no problem using civilians as cover and generally involving civilians whenever possible. All it would take to cause civilians causalities if you were an insurgent, would be to fire at American troops and then run into a house or building where civilians were resideing and then hide, or even use civilians as a human shield.

It is very difficult to conduct a war where the enemy is not held to any standards of decency and/or rules of engagement, yet our own forces are constantly placed under the microscope with some of those on the American Left scrambling to find any evidence of wrongdoing to further thier political agenda and thereby, as a by- product of their political posturing, giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

In a separate incident, American forces were cleared of any wrong doing when calling in an air strike on a building where insurgents were hiding. “The nighttime raid was conducted in the village of Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, by a ground assault force. After being fired upon from the vicinity of the targeted building, the soldiers called in air strikes by an Air Force AC-130 gunship, which attacked the building, the defense officials said."

"Local Iraqis said there were 11 total dead, and contended that they were killed by U.S. troops before the house was leveled."

In this case, the findings of the investigation seem to contradict the statements of the eyewitnesses. We shall see who is telling the truth in the Haditha “massacre” and if the Marines did blatantly kill civilians, they should be punished. However, the rushing to condemnation that is being offered up by Jack Murtha is utterly shameful and serves to bolster the enemies morale rather than our own. Jack Murtha and others who delight in bad news in Iraq are a disgrace.