Sergeant denies ordering 3 Iraqis killed

Girouard contradicted testimony by two squad members who said he told them during a hastily called meeting to kill the detainees. He could face life without parole if convicted of ordering the killings.

Asked by his attorney, Anita Gorecki, whether he ordered the men killed, Girouard replied: "No, ma'am. No ma'am."

"Are you absolutely positive?" Gorecki asked.

"Very positive," Girouard said. "For the last nine months, I've thought about it every night in my cell."

Girouard blamed Pvt. William B. Hunsaker for the killings, saying Hunsaker told him shortly before the deaths: "We should kill [them]. They're terrorists."

Hunsaker and Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, in plea agreements with the government in return for reduced sentences, confessed to shooting the Iraqis. They testified that Girouard ordered the killings and orchestrated a cover-up.

Girouard's testimony essentially amounted to a confession to charges of obstructing justice.

The defense strategy focused on fighting charges of premeditated murder by presenting Girouard as a professional combat leader so loyal to his men that he would lie to protect them -- even for murder.

Girouard, 24, maintained a rigid military posture in the witness chair. He punctuated his testimony with military jargon and acronyms easily understood by the five enlisted soldiers and two officers on the jury.

Wearing a green dress military uniform, he described a fast-moving combat mission that focused on two houses on a marshy island 60 miles northwest of Baghdad on May 9.

In one of those houses, the squad came across the three unarmed Iraqi men, who soldiers said were hiding behind two women.

Girouard denied calling a meeting inside the house to plot the murders. Instead, he said, he shouted to his men to replace thin plastic zip ties on the detainees with stronger plastic flex cuffs so that they could be taken away for further questioning.

He was escorting a fourth detainee to a helicopter landing zone, he said, when he heard gunshots.

Girouard said he was "pretty smoked up" when he realized his men had shot the detainees. He said Hunsaker told him he fired in self-defense after the Iraqis attacked him with a knife and broke free from their restraints.