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Title: Rules of engagement: What were they at Haditha?
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URL Source: http://abcnews.go.com/International/CSM/story?id=2547260
Published: Oct 9, 2006
Author: CBS news
Post Date: 2006-10-09 21:04:51 by Jethro Tull
Keywords: None
Views: 88
Comments: 5
Rules of engagement: What were they at Haditha? If marines are charged with killing as many as 24 Iraqi civilians, defense lawyers will argue the soldiers followed the rules. WASHINGTON It's not clear why. The marines say they were fired upon. Iraqi witnesses say the marines went on a rampage. Now, as the marines await possible charges, a key question is: Were they following their rules of combat? These "rules of engagement" are under increasing scrutiny as American and civilian losses mount in Iraq. The Haditha incident and other alleged atrocities by US troops in Iraq posed "some questions about leadership, about whether the military has done all that it can do to make it clear to troops on the ground what they're entitled to do," says John Sifton, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, based in New York. If charges are brought against the marines, the key to their defense will be that they were following the rules of engagement, defense lawyers say. "It's clear that that is the direction one must take," says attorney Gary Myers, if it's proved his client killed a civilian. He declined to identify which marine he represents in the Haditha controversy to protect the young man's reputation. Whether such a defense can prevail depends both on the facts of what happened in Haditha and on whether those who did the killing acted "reasonably," even if they killed civilians, military law experts say. "No soldier or marine is going to be tried for an honest mistake," says Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps lawyer who teaches the law of war at Georgetown University in Washington. But if the marines knowingly gunned down innocent civilians, no rules of engagement would condone such behavior, experts say. Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to bring charges against any of the marines. Vary from war zone to war zone In conflicts like the one in Iraq, applying the rules can be difficult, especially when troops must make split-second decisions. Sometimes, the rules even allow troops to shoot at civilians, if they can't be distinguished as such and appear to pose a threat. The rules stem from the Joint Chiefs' Standing Rules of Engagement, which are based on laws of war that bar harming unarmed civilians who can be identified as such, says Lt. Col. John "Jay" Mannle, a Marine Corps lawyer. But firing on a car that contains civilians yet fails to slow or stop for a checkpoint something US troops have done often in Iraq is justified if those firing have a "reasonable" belief the car is a threat, he adds. During the November 2004 battle of Fallujah, marines including some from the unit under suspicion in Haditha tossed hand grenades into houses or rooms where they believed insurgents to be. That's the tactic that was used in Haditha, too, according to Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who led the squad accused of the killing. In court papers filed last summer, Sergeant Wuterich said the squad made up of about 10 marines went into the houses after taking fire from them and accidentally killed the civilians while clearing rooms with grenades and rifles. (The papers were part of Wuterich's defamation lawsuit against Rep. John Murtha (D) of Pennsylvania, who said in May that the marines killed those civilians in cold blood.) Residents of Fallujah, however, had been told to leave the city before US and allied forces went in, according to Mr. Solis of Georgetown. Anyone who didn't was regarded as hostile, and US forces were authorized to fire on them. No such warning had been issued in Haditha. Iraqi witnesses in Haditha claim the marines went on a rampage after a roadside bomb killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas. The Iraqis say the marines killed four students when the young men happened upon the scene in a taxi, then massacred civilians in nearby houses, including women and children. Human Rights Watch has asked the Pentagon for copies of the rules of engagement used in Iraq, and the American Civil Liberties Union has filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking them, but rules of engagement are often classified. "We don't want to tell the bad guys what we might do," says Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman. Such rules are usually general, Solis says, and, in any event, "are not tactical instructions on how to proceed in a combat situation." Practice and reminders The cards are next to useless, says Lt. Col. David "Bo" Bolgiano, an Air Force Reserve lawyer and former Baltimore police officer who teaches a course in rules of engagement to members of the military. Troops in combat "are not going to have time to consult them," he says. In any event, problems arise not from the rules "but rather their application," he adds, which makes training in how to respond to potential threats the key. Generally speaking, "the rules are pretty simple," he says. Troops may respond "with force to include deadly force to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm." Although defense lawyers are likely to use rules of engagement as a justification if Haditha charges are brought, the outcome is more likely to turn on the facts surrounding the killings, says retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn, who teaches at South Texas College of Law in Houston. If the civilians were killed by mistake as the marines went after insurgents, he said, the legal question is whether the mistake "was a reasonable one." "The discipline of a military force in battle is built around the core principle that killing on the battlefield is not just permitted, it's required," Colonel Corn said. "But not all killings are justified." By Richard Whittle
Rules of engagement tell troops when they can apply force. They can vary from war zone to war zone, operation to operation, and even mission to mission. They're usually set by "combatant commanders" those in charge of an entire region, such as Gen. John Abizaid, head of US forces in the Middle East. But some rules must be approved by the secretary of Defense or even the president.
Troops are instructed on the rules and practice using them during predeployment training. How such training is conducted falls to unit commanders to decide. Before going into combat, troops also are issued unclassified "ROE cards" as a reminder of the key rules.
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#1. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
That is about as clear as an admission that we are going to get about the murder fest of civilians that occurred at Fallujah. And by the way- they didn't let everyone leave the city. Any male between the ages of 15 and 60 who tried to leave the city before the assault was denied and was turned back to face being murdered by US troops. Other tacit admissions of guilt of atrocities are stories about sniper teams in which they reported up to 10 kills an hour, in other words they shot anything that moved.
According to Lt. Calley, his orders from Captain Medina were "to go in rapidly and to neutralize everything. To kill everything."
Guernica. I'm not reading the new edition of Anthony Beeovr's book about the Spanish Civil War. Excellent book.
Katrina was America's Chernobyl.
Fallujah and the death toll Les Roberts, an investigator with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, conducted a rigorous inquiry into pre- and post-invasion mortality in Iraq, sneaking into Iraq by lying flat on the bed of an SUV and training observers on the scene. The results were published in the Lancet, a prestigious peer-reviewed British medical journal, on Oct. 29, 2004. Roberts and his team (including researchers from Columbia University and from Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad) concluded that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is about 100,000 civilians, and may be much higher. 95% of those deaths were caused by helicopter gunships, rockets, or other forms of aerial weaponry and more than half of the fatalities were women or children. The study was done before the second invasion of Fallujah in the fall of 2004. More than 83 percent of Fallujah's 300,000 residents fled the city. The people had nowhere to flee and ended up as refugees. Many families were forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity, food or medical care. The 50,000 citizens who either chose to remain in the city or who were unable to leave were trapped by Coalition forces and were cut off from food, water and medical supplies Men between the ages of 15 and 45 were refused safe passage, and all who remained were treated as enemy combatants. Coalition forces cut off water and electricity, seized the main hospital, shot at anyone who ventured out into the open, executed families waving white flags while trying to swim across the Euphrates or otherwise flee the city. US forces shot at ambulances, raided homes and killed people who didn't understand English, rolled over injured people with tanks, and allowed corpses to rot in the streets and be eaten by dogs. Medical staff and others reported seeing people, dead and alive, with melted faces and limbs, injuries consistent with the use of phosphorous bombs. As of December 2004 at least 6,000 Iraqi citizens in Fallujah had been killed, and one-third of the city has been destroyed. The International Committee for the Red Cross reported on Dec. 23, 2004 that three of the city's water purification plants had been destroyed and the fourth badly damaged. Not long after the "coalition" had embarked on its second offensive, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called for an investigation into whether the Americans and their allies had engaged in "the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons, and the use of human shields," among other possible "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions ... considered war crimes" under federal law. Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists, has noted that the U.S. invasion of Fallujah is a violation of international law that the U.S. had specifically ratified: "They [US Forces] stormed and occupied the Fallujah General Hospital, and have not agreed to allow doctors and ambulances to go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions." Updates: English Al-Jazeera website at http://english.aljazeera.net/HomeP age, and website at http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com, The World Tribunal on Iraq at http://www.worldtribunal.org * Sources: Peacework, Dec. 2004-Jan. 2005, "The Invasion of Fallujah: A Study in the Subversion of Truth" by Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowell * The NewStandard, Dec. 3, 2004, "Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone" by Dahr Jamail
If only US troops could use a Shibboleth: "The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, "Let me go over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he replied, "No," they said, "All right, say 'Shibboleth'." If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time." (Judges 12:5-6) For US troops, there is no Shibboleth. Rules of engagement will not solve this problem. US troops cannot know their "enemy," because they are not in uniform, and do not act as soldiers for any foreign government. Their "enemy" is in fact any civilian who at the moment opposes or might oppose US military presence in the Middle East. The massacre of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan is simply the inevitable consequence of the decision to treat the criminal acts of 9/11 as acts of war.
Residents of Fallujah, however, had been told to leave the city before US and allied forces went in, according to Mr. Solis of Georgetown. Anyone who didn't was regarded as hostile, and US forces were authorized to fire on them.
#2. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
I've already said too much.
#3. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
#4. To: Burkeman1 (#1)
#5. To: Burkeman1 (#1)
Any male between the ages of 15 and 60 who tried to leave the city before the assault was denied and was turned back to face being murdered by US troops. Other tacit admissions of guilt of atrocities are stories about sniper teams in which they reported up to 10 kills an hour, in other words they shot anything that moved.
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