The Guardian describes the 3rd Marine Regiment, the one with India Company who apparently committed the killings in Haditha. It’s not pretty.
“The marine unit involved in the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November had suffered a “total breakdown” in discipline and had drug and alcohol problems, according to the wife of one of the battalion’s staff sergeants.
The allegations in Newsweek magazine contribute to an ever more disturbing portrait of embattled marines under high stress, some on their third tour of duty after ferocious door-to-door fighting in the Sunni insurgent strongholds of Falluja and Haditha.
The wife of the unnamed staff sergeant claimed there had been a “total breakdown” in the unit’s discipline after it was pulled out of Falluja in early 2005.
“There were problems in Kilo company with drugs, alcohol, hazing [violent initiation games], you name it,” she said. “I think it’s more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha.”
The troops in Iraq have been ordered to take refresher courses on battlefield ethics, but a growing body of evidence from Haditha suggests the strain of repeated deployments in Iraq is beginning to unravel the cohesion and discipline of the combat troops.”
Think about it.
These are guys who know that a tour in Iraq will be followed by another tour in Iraq. It’s not just a year then out. That would require a draft. And they really would like to stay alive. Dead doesn’t work for them.
So they are trigger-happy. If it moves, shoot it. But then, it moved and it was a woman with a child – but they were shot. It was a screw-up that will send someone to Leavenworth and there were four or more witnesses.
So now the issue isn’t just death, it is also life in Leavenworth. So shoot the witnesses and drop weapons near them. They could have been insurgents. Make it look like it. Then tell the commanders that they were taking fire after an IED went off, and simply weren’t too careful who they were shooting. It’s a story that has worked for others, whether true or not.
Then a car drives up, and there are five more Iraqis. They are witnesses, also. It’s a small step further to shoot them also. The other guys are doing it.
The man in charge is a 25-year-old Sergeant. He’s a good marine, one who learns quickly from his training and can get his men to do what he tells them. Nothing in his training ever informed him how to deal with frightened overstressed troops who anticipate being sent back into combat time and again. He doesn’t anticipate what his guys are doing so he was too slow to stop them. Still, he knows for damned sure that he has to try to protect them from the results of what they have done. So he lies for them.
His commander hears the report and knows that he also must protect his troops. That’s a basic element of leadership. A military leader must accomplish the mission, then protect his troops. He wasn’t there. Maybe it really did happen that way. So he simply ignores any minor discrepancies and reports what he was told. Besides, he is in a hurry, with a lot to do. It is another in a long line of quick-and dirty decisions he has had to make. His troops – his people – are standing right there, and they need to be protected. The danger they run is theoretical – an investigation? Why? They don’t deserve an investigation. They are good men, and were out there doing the job he sent them to do. He knows them. Don’t make unnecessary waves, or the next time he sends them out, they won’t trust him to cover their back. The mission may not be accomplished. So he reports what he was told.
One major reason for the one year tour in Viet Nam was that a drafted soldier or individual who joined the Marines to avoid the draft knew that if he completed it, he wasn’t likely to have to come back unless he was regular. Follow the rules, survive and get out. Some draftee would take his place, as he had taken the place of an earlier soldier. Leavenworth was a greater threat to a person who needed only to survive 365 and a wake-up. Only the lifer’s faced repeated tours.
But now, everyone is a lifer. That’s what “All-volunteer” means. When you finish this tour you can anticipate a lot of training and then another tour next year. Want out?
Forget it. Stoploss orders. When your unit is told to go, you go with them. Period. That’s even true for the National Guard, Reserves and Marine Reserves. Iraq isn’t over until the U.S. leaves Iraq, and Bush has already said that won’t happen until he is out of office. So if you want to live, you better be real trigger-happy.
The only surprise in Hadditha is in its discovery. The situation demands Haddithas and their attempted cover-up.
This is what it means when you say a situation is a failure of the command structure. For a commander with some understanding of the pressures on the troops, it is perfectly predictable. The only thing about Hadditha was when it occurred. Hadditha is the direct responsibility of George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and the command structure Iraq and of the Marine Corps.
The same was true of Abu Ghraib.
