05.31.06
Payoffs made “within weeks”…
A military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November were victims of a roadside bomb, according to a senior military official in Iraq.
Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the marines’ story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said.
Colonel Watt also reviewed payments totaling $38,000 in cash made within weeks of the shootings to families of victims.
In an interview Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt, the officer who made the payments, said he was told by superiors to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but was told that rest of those killed had been deemed to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.
After the initial payments were made, however, those families demanded similar payments, insisting their relatives had not attacked the marines, Major Hyatt said.
Major Hyatt said he was authorized by Colonel Chessani and more senior officers at the marines’ regimental headquarters to make the payments to relatives of 15 victims.
Colonel Chessani “was part of the chain of command that gives the approval,” Major Hyatt said.
“Even when he signs off on it,” the major added, “it still has to go up to” the unit’s regimental headquarters.
Colonel Chessani declined to comment on Tuesday when visited at his home at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
The list of 15 victims deemed to be noncombatants was put together by intelligence personnel attached to the battalion, Major Hyatt said. Those victims were related to a Haditha city council member, he said. The American military sometimes pays compensation to relatives of civilian victims.
If they were killed by a roadside bomb, we wouldn’t be paying anyone. So Regimental HQ knew these were killing by our guys almost immediately. So the rest of the story is people lying to the american public, which by law they ain’t supposed to do.
“I didn’t say we had made a mistake,” Major Hyatt said, describing what he had told the city council member who was representing the victims. “I said I’m being told I can make payments for these 15 because they were deemed not to be involved in combat.”
The military began its examination of the killings only after Time magazine presented the full findings of its investigation to a military spokesman in Baghdad in early February.
General Chiarelli, an Army officer who took command of American ground forces in Iraq in January, learned soon after the spokesman was notified that the Marines had not investigated the incident, according to the senior military official.
On Tuesday, the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said President Bush first became aware of the episode after the Time magazine inquiry, when he was briefed by Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser. “When this comes out, all the details will be made available to the public, so we’ll have a picture of what happened,” Mr. Snow said.
“All the extra buzz around Milford has been a lot of fun,” Ms. Watson said Tuesday. The city’s chief of police evidently agreed, buying a half-dozen cupcakes to take to F.B.I. agents as an afternoon snack.
