This post from Pajamas Media isn't hot off the press, but Jim Hanson of Blackfive takes an in-depth look at the Haditha murder cases and concludes that crimes were not committed on that fateful day in November 2005. The one remaining soldier facing murder charges is SSgt Wuterich. Charges against the other soldiers were dropped, and it appears likely that Wuterich will be cleared.

Hanson bypasses any discussion as to whether the rules of engagement (ROE) were appropriate, and in terms of the legal proceedings, he's right. For those Marines in Haditha, ROE were established and the test is whether those rules were breached. The answer, so far, is "no".

Nevertheless, it is apparent that the ROE were part of the problem, and it looks the tactics used in Fallujah were applied to Haditha. Bing West:

The superior officers who developed the ROE share some responsibility, but in my view, most of the fault lies with the high command and its piss-poor strategy. The Marines had initially cleared and held Haditha, but because of troop shortages, they were deployed to Fallujah twice, allowing insurgents back into the town unchallenged. November 2005 was the Marines' third stint in Haditha, and by that time, all the previous progress had gone up in smoke. What had been a pacified city was a hot zone.

Congressman Jack Murtha helped ignite this incident by going public and proclaiming that the Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood". I don't know about you, but when I read "cold blood", it sounds awfully like Murtha was accusing those Marines of murder for this tragedy. He owes those soldiers an apology. However, in one aspect Murtha is right in his comment that there was "pressure" on the Marines, and that pressure came about because of the way those Marines were jerked around by their "superiors".
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