The Haditha Incident (also called the Haditha Killings or Haditha Massacre) is one of the most emotionally charged, hotly debated events of America’s recent wars. Many proclaim themselves knowledgeable on the topic, but when you dig deeper, you learn that they cannot know as much as they think they do.
This isn’t their fault. Those who really know aren’t talking.
Kenneth Englade is an investigative journalist and author of eight previous books about high-profile civilian trials. He writes that his latest book, Meltdown in Haditha: The Killing of 24 Iraqi Civilians by U.S. Marines and the Failure of Military Justice, was by far his most difficult book to research. He often thought of giving up. Most of the court documents to which he would normally have access were classified, and he received little help from any Marine or military lawyer, serving or retired. Even those who had no inside knowledge of the case wouldn’t help him, refusing to merely clarify U.S. military jargon and legal processes. When he asked a retired Army JAG officer from the Vietnam era why this retiree wouldn’t help, the former JAG replied: “Because you’re wasting your time . . . The fix is in. You’re never going to get anything meaningful.”
Meltdown in Haditha proves this retiree wrong, shedding some much-needed light on the Haditha incident and its messy legal aftermath. Ultimately, what is publicly known and what is ambiguous about the incident resolves into a clarion call for military change. Reaching the sound of this call, though, can be a distressing journey for the open-minded reader to travel, especially if the reader is American and, even more so, if this reader has ever served in the U.S. military.
Hell House
Englade starts the reader on this painful journey with a description of the First Battle of Fallujah. The 1stMarine Expeditionary Force (1MEF) assumed military responsibility for Iraq’s Al Anbar Province in early 2004. 1MEF leaders expected their Marines to set a new standard for cultural sensitivity, leveraging this sensitivity to win respect, establish dialogue, and earn locals’ acquiescence in the formation of a new Iraqi government. Their expectation didn’t last long. When four American contractors were killed in Fallujah and their bodies publicly burned, the national command authority ordered the 1MEF to seize the city and punish the perpetrators. The 1MEF quickly complied, assaulting the city with 2,000 men. After four days of intense fighting with insurgents, the U.S. unilaterally declared a ceasefire. An ad hoc “Fallujah Brigade” consisting largely of former Iraqi Army officers was permitted to try to restore order.
The faux peace failed with the dissolution of this “brigade” in September. Englade writes that both “insurgents and Marines girded for a second, more violent showdown.” In November, the 1MEF established a 5000-man-strong cordon around the city and assaulted the city with 10,000 Marines, soldiers, and sailors. Since women, children, and the elderly had been allowed to leave the city, the 1MEF’s Rules of Engagement (ROE) were relaxed. The combination of permissive ROE, overwhelming U.S. firepower, and entrenched insurgents made the Second Battle of Fallujah the most kinetic battle of the war. The 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Division (3/1 Battalion), the assault’s main effort, was in the thick of the fighting. One especially intense fight was for what they called “Hell House,” a structure designed for defense and manned by well-armed insurgents. One Marine was killed and nearly a dozen wounded before it was decided to blow up rather than occupy the structure. When the battle was over, the 1MEF held the city. It was an impressive, albeit inevitable, tactical victory.
Englade argues that the Marine Corps may have been slow to recognize this battle’s uniqueness. This kind of fighting was the exception, not the rule, and the Marine Corps as an institution—from the commandant to young Marines listening with envy to the stories of those “who had been there”—may not have fully embraced this fact. Less than a year later, the 1MEF redeployed to Al Anbar Province. By this point, residents needed the respectful, culturally attuned organization that 1MEF leaders had once trained their unit to be. Ironically and tragically—with at least a few Marines still stuck in memories of the great battles for Fallujah, others dreaming of earning such memories for themselves—this wasn’t the unit Iraqis always got.
The stage set, Englade’s narrative shifts to Haditha. During the early twilight hours of November 19, 2005, a squad from Kilo Company, 3/1 Battalion, ran its regular re-supply mission from their base to a checkpoint five miles away. Mission ROE allowed them to fire into civilian buildings only if insurgents were using them for military purposes or if necessary for self-defense. It also required positive identification (a reasonable certainty) that the proposed target was a legitimate military target.
The squad’s convoy of four Humvees was returning from the checkpoint when, after turning a corner, the last vehicle hit an IED. The vehicle was thrown several feet in the air, instantly killing the driver. As Englade graphically describes, the Marine’s “upper torso came to rest on Route Chestnut while the lower portion of his body was wedged beneath the Humvee’s steering wheel.”
Englade recounts how five Iraqi men immediately happened upon the scene in a white Opel sedan. Four of the Iraqis were students, and the fifth had been hired to drive them to their nearby technical school. Their timing couldn’t have been worse. The squad leader forced the men out of the car at gunpoint, then killed them. He would testify that the five men were running away when he shot them. Another Marine—granted immunity from prosecution—would testify that the Iraqis were standing, some with their hands behind their heads, when the squad leader opened fire. He would also testify that the squad leader shot each a second time from close range, that he himself urinated in the open head wound of one of the dead Iraqis, and that the squad leader would later ask him to lie when questioned and say that the Iraqis “were running away” when shot. A Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigator would testify, based on photographic evidence, that he believed at least four of the Iraqis had been standing still when shot.
The Marines searched the vehicle and found no weapons, IED materials, or any device that could’ve been used as a detonator. The company’s Quick Reaction Force drove up, and the squad’s platoon leader dismounted. A Marine pointed to the south, telling the lieutenant that “he had seen someone shooting at them from a corner of the house.” Whether they were actually shot at would be later disputed, with Marines giving conflicting accounts. As Englade writes, if someone did shoot at the Marines, “the contact was quickly broken.” The platoon leader ordered them to “Clear south!” and, while the squad ran to the first house, their squad leader told them to treat the house as “hostile” and to “Shoot first and ask questions later.”
He would also testify that the squad leader shot each a second
time from close range, that he himself urinated in the open head
wound of one of the dead Iraqis, and that the squad leader would later ask him to lie when questioned and say that the Iraqis “were running away” when shot.
At the first house, the squad leader kicked the door in, and the Marines found themselves facing a 76-year-old Iraqi man in a wheelchair. Englade writes that a Marine “fired a quick burst into his chest, killing him instantly.” The old man’s 66-year-old wife, who had been standing at his side, turned to run. She, too, was gunned down. Peering into a dimly lit room from the hallway, a Marine saw an Iraqi man, asked for permission to shoot, then did so, killing the man.
Two Marines would later swear that, in a shadowy room on the far side of the hallway, they heard an AK-47 being racked for fire. They prepped the room with grenades and entered, as one Marine would testify, “firing at si