WASHINGTON — A report on the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines has found that senior military personnel in Iraq failed to follow up on "red flags" that should have indicated problems with and potential inaccuracies in initial accounts of the incident, according to a portion of the report's summary.
The report questions why senior military officers in western Iraq failed to investigate further what happened in the town of Haditha when they learned that civilians there had been killed in the November incident. A portion of the executive summary of the report, by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, was read to The Times by a Defense Department official who requested anonymity because the report had not been released publicly.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday June 22, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 60 words Type of Material: Correction
Marines: An article Wednesday in Section A on a U.S. military report on the killing in November of two dozen Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha said that seven Marines and a naval corpsman were being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton in connection with the incident. They were being held in connection with another incident in Iraq.
"Virtually no inquiry at any level of command was conducted into the circumstances surrounding the deaths," Bargewell wrote, according to the excerpt provided to The Times. "There were, however, a number of red flags and opportunities to do so."
Military officials have said a squad of Marines killed the 24 civilians in Haditha after a roadside bomb killed a member of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton.
After the incident, the Marines involved reported that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb or in the crossfire of a battle between the Americans and insurgents. In a public report, the Marine Corps attributed the deaths to a roadside bomb.
Bargewell was assigned to investigate the actions, or failure to act, of the Marines' leadership, in part to determine whether officers sought to cover up the incident. A separate inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is expected to determine whether criminal wrongdoing occurred. Commanders at Camp Pendleton, where seven Marines and a Navy corpsman allegedly involved in the Haditha incident are being held in the brig, will decide whether charges should be filed against the men.
The Bargewell report has not been released and is still being reviewed by Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, a top U.S. commander in Iraq. But military officials have said that though it suggests there was no deliberate cover-up by senior Marine officers, there were many failures in the follow-up.
For instance, the executive summary of Bargewell's inquiry argues that problems with the reports submitted by the Marines of Kilo Company should have been apparent to leaders of the Marine command in the area, called Multinational Force-West, or MNF-West.
