Rumsfeld After Haditha Inquiry: Really-Really Bad-or Worse Than Abu Ghraib

[kpete]

Rumsfeld After Initial Haditha Inquiry: "Really, Really Bad -- As Bad Or Worse Than Abu Ghraib"...
Thomas E. Ricks | June 4, 2006 at 08:31 AM

In Haditha Killings, Details Came Slowly
Official Version Is at Odds With Evidence

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 4, 2006; A01

Army Col. Gregory Watt was tapped to start an investigation and by March 9, he told Chiarelli that he had reached two conclusions, according to the Army officer.

One was that death certificates showed that the 24 Iraqis who died that day -- the 15 the Marines said had died in the bomb blast and others they said were insurgents -- had been killed by gunshot rather than a bomb, as the official statement had said. The other was that the Marine Corps had not investigated the deaths, as is the U.S. military's typical procedure in Iraq, particularly when so many civilians are involved. Individually, either finding would have been disturbing. Together, they were stunning.

On March 10, the findings were given to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, the first Marine ever to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld told aides that the case promised to be a major problem. He called it "really, really bad -- as bad or worse than Abu Ghraib," recalled one Pentagon official. On March 11, President Bush was informed, according to the White House.

At the Marine Corps headquarters, there was "genuine surprise at high levels," said an Army officer who has been working with the Marine Corps on the case. "It caught a lot of people off guard."

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300710_pf.html
via:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/06/04/rumsfeld-after-initial-ha_n_22157.html

[NC_Nurse]

1. RESIGN already!

Asshole! :mad:

[Toots]

2. 'case' promised to be a major problem.

See how they truly feel. The actual crime was no big deal but the 'case' and how it will effect the Administration is the problem. I do believe he is "Outraged at the outrage". This 'case' might effect them as bad or worse as Abu Ghraib.