The world has moved on from the big scandal of the Battle of Iraq since the Old Media and the Congressman from Pennsylvania John ‘The Saboteur’ Murtha declared to the world that our Marines committed ‘cold blooded murder’. It seemed that everyone was interested in the allegations and took them as fact. It seems that no one is particularly interested in the dismissal of the charges against the Marines. I still hear people today refer to Haditha as thought it is synonymous with My Lai of the Vietnam war and a descriptive word used for the corruption and evil ways of our Troops.
Just like with most sensational crimes, the allegations are on the front page and the dismissal of charges is buried deep in the news if its reported at all. The damage is done. The average person believes that it happened because that is what was reported as fact and the world has moved on. Meanwhile, these Marines have had their reputations, their freedom, their careers, their financial well-being and more taken from them during two years of investigations.
The final arbiter in the Haditha matter has dismissed twelve charges of unpremeditated murder as well as separate charges of soliciting another to commit an offense and making false official statements. This is the last word on the subject. This removes the onus that war crimes were committed by any of the American Marines who fought the long hard battle they were drawn into that day in Haditha. They should receive metals. Instead they were put into prison and endured slander at the hands of the media and a United States Congressman. It served as a venue to help Murtha in his career hopes of getting a Democratic majority in Congress and then for him to be the Majority Leader. All those lives damaged and the good name of our Marines tainted for Murtha’s political ambitions.
Attorneys Neil Puckett and Mark Zaid, in Washington, D.C., co-counsels for SSgt Wuterich, responded:
‘The good news is that SSgt Wuterich (and all of the Marines, for that matter), have been forever cleared of murder charges. That means that there is (and never was) any evidence to support Congressman Murtha’s and Time magazine’s allegations of these Marines killing Iraqis ‘in cold blood.’
‘The bad news is that the extensive pretrial investigation and legal analysis conducted by an experienced military judge was essentially ignored. It is always disappointing when professional military prosecutors profess to want to do the right thing by setting up the system to work, and then ignore its results because they refuse to give Marines under attack in combat the benefit of the doubt that they were responding according to their training. We are confident that a military jury will acquit SSgt Wuterich of all remaining charges, because he is, in fact, not guilty.’
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