CAMP PENDLETON — Three senior Marine officers have been given letters of censure for failing to launch a war-crimes investigation of the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, the Marine Corps announced Wednesday.
The letters will go into the personnel files of Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, who was commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division; Col. Robert G. Sokoloski, a lawyer who was chief of staff to the division while it was in Iraq; and Col. Stephen W. Davis, former commanding officer of the 2nd Marine Regiment.
The recommendation to issue the censures was made by Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commanding general of the Marine Forces Central Command. The Haditha case involves the largest number of war crimes allegations against Marines in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Mattis is responsible for investigating and prosecuting possible crimes in the November 2005 killings in Haditha, which include murder charges filed in December against four enlisted Marines and dereliction of duty charges against four lower-ranking officers for not investigating the incident properly.
Mattis determined that the actions of Huck, Davis and Sokoloski did not rise to the level of criminal acts or a deliberate cover-up, officials said.
But he found that their failure to fully investigate the shootings constituted a "lack of due diligence" expected of top-level officers.
Mattis' determination was endorsed by Marine Commandant Gen. James T. Conway. The letters of censure were signed by Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter, who has the sole authority to issue them.
"While these three officers have served their country and corps exceedingly well for decades, their actions, inactions and decisions in the aftermath of the Haditha incident did not meet the high standards we expect of Marine senior officer leadership," Conway said in a statement.
Although a censure letter does not force an officer to retire, it signals that the officer will never be promoted, said Gary Solis, a former Marine attorney who teaches military law at Georgetown University.
The 2005 Haditha incident started when a roadside bomb exploded beneath a Humvee in a Marine convoy, killing a Marine and injuring two.
Within minutes, Marines had killed five Iraqi men who had driven to the scene of the explosion and later, in "clearing" three houses while hunting for insurgents, killed 19 more Iraqis, including three women and seven children.
