Hmmm...What Was That About 'Not Doing Body Counts'?


The Iraqi version of "If it's dead, it's VC:"

Military prosecutors and investigators probing the killing of three Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops in May believe the unit's commanders created an atmosphere of excessive violence by encouraging "kill counts" and possibly issuing an illegal order to shoot Iraqi men.

At a military hearing Wednesday on the killing of the detainees near Samarra, witnesses painted a picture of a brigade that operated under loose rules allowing wanton killing and tolerating violent, anti-Arab racism.

Some military officials believe that the shooting of the three detainees and the killing of 24 civilians in November in Haditha reveal failures in the military chain of command, in one case to establish proper rules of engagement and in the other to vigorously investigate incidents after the fact.

"The bigger thing here is the failure of the chain of command," said a Defense Department official familiar with the investigations.

As allegations of U.S. troop misconduct in Iraq have mounted, the military's defenders have maintained that most were isolated incidents and that officers and investigators working within the military justice system had succeeded in ferreting out the truth.

The military's primary report on the Haditha incident, completed this year, does not explicitly accuse the Marine command in Iraq of a cover-up. But the investigation cites several instances of information being ignored or evidence being destroyed, including log entries from the day the killings took place. The Defense official, who has reviewed the report, spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been released.

Initial findings of investigators looking into the Samarra incident may be even more troubling. Military officials are investigating Army Col. Michael Steele, the commander of the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade, whose soldiers are accused of killing the three Iraqi detainees.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Steele issued an illegal order to "kill all military aged males" and encouraged unrestrained killing by his troops.

On Wednesday, a military court heard testimony from a witness who suggested that a culture of racism and unrestrained violence pervaded the unit.

The account of Pfc. Bradley Mason and other witnesses bolstered the findings of investigators who say the brigade's commanders led soldiers to believe it was permissible to kill Iraqi men...

Mason depicted a unit that had embraced a violent ethos and was routinely hostile to ordinary Iraqis. Commanders encouraged soldiers to compete to rack up "enemy kills," he said. A board at their headquarters that showed the numbers of Iraqis killed served to reinforce the message. "Let the bodies hit the floor," read a phrase at the bottom of the board.

"That's another terrorist down," Mason quoted Girouard as telling soldiers after they killed someone. "Good job."

Soldiers referred to ordinary Iraqis derogatorily as "hajis," a reference to Muslims who have made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, and considered the 10 or so Iraqi army soldiers and interpreters working for their unit as mostly "terrorists," Mason said. Under questioning, Mason acknowledged saying that even before he arrived in Iraq, he asserted that "every man, woman and child in Iraq deserves to die."

On May 8, the day before the raid, Steele reportedly addressed a group of about 100 soldiers.

"We're going in tomorrow," he told them, according to 1st Lt. Justin Werheim, another prosecution witness. "We're going to hit the ground shooting, and kill all the Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents."

The rules of engagement were unambiguous, Werheim said, and came down "several times" via Capt. Daniel Hart, who also has requested immunity.

"We were to positively identify and kill any military-age male on the island," Werheim said.

On the "bright" side, I don't doubt military historians and specialists will be studying our occupation for years to come...it's a textbook example of how NOT to win.