Military sources told ABC News that there are likely to be charges filed against officers up the chain of command in connection with the killing of 24 civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq, in November 2005.
Those who could be charged include senior officers who were not on the scene at the time of the killing but should have known something wrong had happened and done something about it.
Today the White House confirmed that it was nearly three months after the Haditha killings that an investigation began, only after Time Magazine showed a video to a military spokesman.
In other words, the military only launched an investigation after they knew mainstream media had evidence. Time originally thought it was al Qaida propaganda, but that caused the military to start an investigation. Some in the military, it is clear, want no part of a coverup and are genuinely revolted by what they see as a desecration of their core values. Others, of course, participated in massacre and in the coverup.
Until then, the military insisted the civilians in Haditha had been killed by a roadside bomb.
But the video showed a bloody scene that suggested otherwise and prompted officials to launch a preliminary investigation into what happened.
“Prompted?” Try “forced” – the military was forced to launch an investigation even though they’d been covering up all along. And they would still be doing so if they could. But the videos, which were originally released by an Iraqi Human Rights group, are too damning for that, as witness at least one prominent Republican member of Congress saying what happened was an “atrocity.”