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Backgrounder: What Happens Now on Haditha Investigation

Council on Foreign Relations

June 1, 2006

Introduction

The U.S. has launched a series of investigations after allegations surfaced that U.S. Marines, in response to the death of one of their own, deliberately murdered Iraqi civilians last November in Haditha, located in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. The facts of the case remain unclear, but witnesses say the Marines opened fire on insurgents before massacring as many as twenty-four unarmed Iraqis, including women, children, and the elderly. The Naval Criminal Investigation Service has launched an investigation into the massacre, and allegations that military officials ordered a cover-up are also under investigation. Some have already likened the Haditha massacre to My Lai, the Vietnamese village where U.S. Army soldiers slaughtered around 500 civilians in 1968.

What happened at Haditha?

During a routine patrol on the morning of November 19, the Third Battalion of the First Marine Regiment came under small-arms attack and returned fire, shortly after their convoy of four Humvees was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED), killing one marine, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas of El Paso, Texas, in addition to a number of nearby Iraqis. What happened next is unclear and the subject of widespread speculation. According to the U.S. military's initial report, now under scrutiny by several investigative bodies, the IED also killed fifteen civilians. The Marines, under fire, responded by killing eight gunmen. However, forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts contradict this version of events and suggest the possibility of a massacre. Whatever the facts, the shootout that day in Haditha capped one of the most violent three-day periods since the start of the war. According to the New York Times, in total, at least 150 Iraqis and eight U.S. and British soldiers perished in the series of attacks, culminating in the November 19 firefight in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold northwest of Baghdad.

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Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.