This is an update to yesterday’s diary Iraqi Massacre: It’s Not Just Haditha. Additional media reports today provide significant evidence of a military cover-up of the Haditha massacre of November 19, 2005:

Promoted by Steven D. Please continue reading this diary below the fold, for all the sickening details.

(1)  A month after the massacre, the military paid compensation for each person killed. Victim compensation requires approval from the “highest authority” and is not provided unless the military is at fault.

In December 2005, the US Marines paid $2,500 for each person killed and these payments were “authorized by the battalion commander Lt. Col. Chessani and his superiors.” While it is unclear how far up in the chain of command it was necessary to proceed to obtain approval, it is “standard procedure for the military to make payments when it is at fault.” As Rep. Murtha stated, payment of compensation does not happen unless the “highest authority” is provided because it is an acceptance of responsibility, which would not have occurred if the deaths were caused by the explosive device initially claimed by the military.

It is also noteworthy that TIME posted its new-breaking story of this massacre in March 2006 after conducting a 10-week investigation. “In January, after Time presented military officials in Baghdad with the Iraqis’ accounts of the Marines’ actions, the U.S. opened its own investigation.” However, the US military had initially “refused to believe villagers who accused the Marines of murdering unarmed civilians, even when presented with credible evidence assembled by Time magazine for an article in March.”  Moreover, the military was “incredibly hostile” to TIME and accused TIME of “buying into enemy propaganda, and they stuck to their original story, which is that these people were all killed by the IED [improvised explosive device].”

However, the military had already paid victim compensation months earlier and yet it was still trying to apparently encourage TIME to not report its story, playing the patriotic card that any massacre claim was “enemy propaganda” and clinging to the initial story of the IED explosion. Fortunately, TIME did not cave in.

(2) Investigators have evidence that Marines discussed cover story.

Investigators say that a “sergeant coaxed other Marines to come up with a cover story about the incident. The squad leader allegedly sought to prove his group was not at fault for the deaths. Of particular concern to the sergeant, investigators say, was the deaths of five Iraqis in a taxi. They were unarmed and killed by Marines shortly after the roadside bomb went off, investigators have found.”

(3)  Prior reports from the Iraqi Ambassador of an intentional killing 5 months prior to the November 2005 Haditha massacre may have prompted military drone surveillance on the day in question and radio message traffic on that day indicates superiors knew of the number of civilians killed.

The US military had to know or reasonably suspect that Marines were killing innocent civilians in Haditha at least 5 months before this massacre in November 2005. The new Iraqi Ambassador Sumaidaie to the US presented his credentials to Bush at the White House today and then stated on CNN that the US Marines intentionally killed his 21-year old cousin in Haditha 5 months before the Haditha massacre in November 2005. The ambassador stated that his cousin, an engineering student, was killed when Marines conducted house-to-house searches.  The cousin opened the door of his family home to the Marines, who shot the cousin in his father’s bedroom while his mother and siblings were in the house. At that time, Mr. Sumaidaie was ambassador to the UN and the US military conducted an investigation, which concluded that “there was no unlawful killing,” claiming his cousin was shot in self-defense. The ambassador is also “suspicious about the deaths of three other youths in Haditha shortly after that of his cousin.”

In addition, the question arises as to whether military surveillance of Haditha was conducted because of prior allegations of civilians being murdered by soldiers and/or because the area is deemed active with insurgent activity. In either event, there is video surveillance footage that shows some of the activities that day provided by an unmanned drone aircraft that circled overhead part of the day.  In addition to the drone video, there are records of radio traffic conducted between the Marines in Haditha and a command center. Two of the lawyers who have discussed the case with Marines involved stated that the radio “message traffic will show officers in higher headquarters knew early on that a large number of civilians had been killed and that they did not raise alarms.” The “presence of the drone is potentially significant because such surveillance craft are in high demand in Iraq and their use is supervised by senior officers — which could indicate there was interest among higher officers about what was occurring in Haditha.”

Looks like Rep. Murtha is right when he stated the Haditha November 2005 massacre involved a cover-up and the only question now is how high up the chain of command will the investigation proceed?  It was reported today that “Pentagon investigations into the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians are focused on about a dozen enlisted Marines and do not target their commanding officers,” according to Paul Hackett (who lost a special election for Ohio House seat last year) who is a lawyer for one of the officers.

One final note, National Security Adviser Steve Hadley did not brief Bush about the Haditha massacre until earlier this year after TIME started asking questions as part of its investigation.

The MSM takes a lot of hits, but if it were not for TIME’s investigation and persistence, this massacre may never have been publicly revealed.

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