The Discerning Texan

I must say I have always admired reader SBD’s talent and diligence in finding news articles that have direct bearing on stories, and finding them first! So it seems with the Haditha charade. SBD posted this comment on June 8th (from this post):

A cameraman working for Reuters in Haditha says bodies had been left lying in the street for hours after the attack.

Reuters camerman, Reuters Story, and no mention of Massacre. Maybe reuters has blind cameramen?? Do they really expect us to believe that Reuters withheld a story like this for 8 months when they had a cameraman right there during the supposed massacre?

The media really has no shame.

US details Haditha shoot-out

A roadside bomb that killed a US Marine in the restive town of Haditha on Saturday also killed 15 Iraqi civilians and led to intense clashes with insurgents.

The powerful bomb detonated as a US military convoy was passing through the town, which is 220 kilometres north-west of Baghdad.

The US military says immediately after the blast, gunmen opened fire on the convoy.

US and Iraqi soldiers returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another in a firefight.

A cameraman working for Reuters in Haditha says bodies had been left lying in the street for hours after the attack.

He says the town has been virtually shut down for the past two days as US and Iraqi forces try to impose order.

US troops have been trying for months to quell the insurgency in Haditha and other Sunni Arab towns on the Euphrates.

It was suspected several months ago that Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was hiding out in the area.

The casualties from Saturday’s blast raised the death toll from attacks across Iraq over the past three days to at least 166.

Sunni-led insurgents are stepping up their battle against US and Iraqi forces ahead of parliamentary elections in December.

- Reuters

Apparently he also posted the at Free Republic. The critical point is that on the scene reporters for the anti-war, anti-Bush Reuters did not make mention of a massacre or incursion into homes, just a street fight. My hat is off to SBD for helping to expose a possible slanderous lie against our military and troops as they simply acted to protect themselves during an attack.

SBD has been doing more research, and found this possibly related article (comment from this post) on an Iraqi cameraman killed just weeks before the Haditha story came out in Time:

I have found something that may be nothing, but seems rather suspicious. The person who was in charge of Iraqi TV was murdered just 2 weeks before the Hadithi story was published by Time. The official had the same last name as the alleged massacre victims in Hadithi. Was he related? Did he provide any of the film or photos used in the massacre alligation? Maybe he had footage to prove the contrary, but more than likely he had access to enough footage from Iraq to manufacture any evidence needed to fabricate this story.

Xinhua General News Service
March 11, 2006 Saturday 4:00 AM EST
SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Political
LENGTH: 101 words
HEADLINE: Gunmen kill senior TV official in Baghdad
DATELINE: BAGHDAD

BODY: Unknown gunmen ambushed the car of the director in the government-backed Iraqia TV in western Baghdad on Saturday, a police source told Xinhua.

“Unidentified armed men shot dead Amjad hamid Hassan, director of Iraqiya TV, near the al-Shurta tunnel,” Captain Ahmed Abdullah from Baghdad police said.

He added that the attack took place at about 10:30 a.m. (0730 GMT).

Iraqi security forces cordoned off the scene and an ambulance reached to evacuate the victims.

The Iraqiya TV cut its regular programs and announced the news and started broadcasting holly Quran following the incident.

LOAD-DATE: March 12, 2006

We shall see if this lead pans out as well as the last one. Good job SBD.

Addendum: seems even Time now sees problems in their reporting:

If the Marines are indeed guilty of an atrocity, they had the ill fortune to have committed their crime in the worst possible place: outside the front door of a budding Iraqi journalist and human-rights activist.

And if the Marines are innocent, they had the misfortune of being bombed outside the front door of a human rights activist. What are the odds of a bomb being planted at that specific location on that route? With armed men covering the site from nearby homes?

More on this Time POS later today. But one ponders how far an Al Qaeda sympathizer would go to ensnare the US military in a My Lai styled debacle and have a duplicitous media push for withdrawal from Iraq? Would they go this far:

[Time’s] McGirk contacted Marine headquarters in Ramadi to inquire about the incident. The Marines sent back an e-mail saying there were 15 civilian deaths in Haditha on Nov. 19 but that the victims were killed by the roadside bomb and by a firefight that erupted when insurgents fired on the Marines. But the videotape showed that many of the dead were pajama-clad women and children. The bodies had wounds from bullets, not shrapnel, and the scene suggested that they had been murdered inside their homes.

The insurgents and Al Qaeda are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. So what makes anyone think they would not kill these people before the bombing of the convoy, shoot from the homes of the people they massacred, and then stage video in the next few months? Doesn’t sound out of bounds for Zarqawi’s thugs.

Then there was this follow up story about the media's disgraceful coverage, and its misleading the public of the fact that Haditha Is AQ Central:

To understand what are the possible explanations for what happened in Haditha it is important to look at the reporting, and understand Haditha was AQ Central and the likely source of a propaganda snuff film to excite the liberal (and blindered) western media. So let’s look at the liberal media’s reporting on Haditha for some clues.

April 3, 2003:

Two female suicide bombers carried out an attack which killed three coalition soldiers at a checkpoint north-west of Baghdad on Thursday, Iraq says.

A pregnant woman who ran from the car just before the explosion died in the blast as did the driver of the vehicle, who Iraq’s official news agency said was also a woman.

The Arabic television station al-Jazeera broadcast separate videotapes of two Iraqi women, one saying she was seeking “martyrdom” and the other threatening a jihad or holy war against American, British and Israeli “infidels”.

US Central Command in Qatar said the incident occurred on Thursday evening 18 kilometres from the Haditha Dam and about 130 km (80 miles) from the Iraq-Syria border.

November 7 2004:

Iraqi insurgents have stormed a police station, disarmed 21 officers and shot them dead, police say.

The attack at Haditha in the western province of al-Anbar was the latest in a series of violent incidents across the Sunni Triangle area.

…

Fighting at the Haditha police station, 200km (120 miles) west of Baghdad, lasted about 90 minutes, sources say, as the building was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

The gunmen fled, taking with them vehicles and weapons looted from the police station in Haditha.

The bodies of 21 policemen were later found with their hands tied behind their backs.

Notice the trade mark of the insurgents.

April 20 2005

The bodies of 19 Iraqis have been found at a football stadium in Haditha, north of the capital Baghdad.

Eyewitness said they appeared to have been lined up against a wall and shot.

The dead wore civilian clothes. First reports said they were soldiers, but the defence ministry later said they were fishermen from the south of Iraq.

This attack were the pictures that were broadcast as being from the supposed Marine Massacre and caught by Bloggers like Michelle Malkin.

July 29 2005:

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has said it was behind the killing of Egypt’s top diplomat and two Algerian envoys this month.

Meanwhile, the US military says two of its soldiers have died in clashes with insurgents near the Syrian border.

Earlier, it said nine suspected militants had been killed in US air strikes on several buildings - believed to have been used as safe houses - in the town of Haditha.

July 31 2005:

American troops have reported killing 11 insurgents in fighting near Iraq’s border with Syria, on a day of violence which saw at least six other deaths.

Marines came under mortar fire from militants in an empty school near the town of Haditha, the US military said.

The insurgents died after forces bombed the building, setting off explosions from the ammunition stored inside.

August 5 2005:

Fourteen marines and a translator working with them were killed in a single roadside bombing close to the town of Haditha shortly after sunrise on Wednesday, adding significantly to US casualties as they battle insurgents along a corridor formed by the River Euphrates.

Beyond Haditha lies Iraq’s border with Syria which, according to the Americans, is an infiltration route for insurgents.

There were graphic accounts of the Haditha blast. The marines were in an armoured amphibious assault vehicle. It was said to have flipped over after a thunderous explosion.

October 14 2005:

Millions of people are expected to cast their votes in a referendum on whether to accept a new constitution drawn up by members of the transitional parliament over the spring and summer.
…
But he admits that in other towns and villages across the western half of Anbar, such as Qaim, Rawa and Haditha, the situation is much more difficult.

Some of these have been under the control of militants.

In some, such as Haditha, there have even been reports of Taleban-style regimes being established.

Last week US troops backed by attack helicopters and fighter aircraft launched a series of offensives in the area aimed at rooting out the militants and cutting their supply-lines.

According to the Iraqi government, 90 insurgents were killed and almost 200 arrested. But civilians were also among the casualties.

And this is not the first time someone has claimed the US had murdered civilians in Haditha. From August 22, 2005:

Iraq’s ambassador to the UN last month demanded an inquiry into his relative’s death.

A letter written by Mr Sumaidaie to his colleagues said his unarmed cousin had been assisting marines in the search of his house when he was killed.

Mr Sumaidaie said the ramifications of such a “serious crime” were enormous for both the US and Iraq.

He said Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time.

He opened the door to them and was “happy to exercise some of his English”, said the ambassador.

When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition.

It was allegedly the last time the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside.

As the marines left “smiling at each other” an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie.

“In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and lying in a clotted pool of his blood - a single bullet had penetrated his neck,” the Iraqi envoy said.

Sounds really serious, as written. But since no one heard more about the death of a UN Ambassador’s relative we can guess where this ended. CNN had the Ambassador on recently where he confirmed the story by the Marines was seld defense.

BLITZER: So what you’re suggesting, your cousin was killed in cold blood, is that what you’re saying, by United States Marines?

SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing.

I would like further investigation. I have, in fact, asked for the report of the last investigation, which was a criminal investigation, by the way.

Who is right? Who knows. But the excuse the man gave for why his cousin couldn’t be with the insrugents is naive at best:

SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self-defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent — I mean, I know the boy. He was [in] a second-year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.

Mohamed Atta was a non-violent student of engineering too, so that won’t mean squat. What is clear is Haditha has had a long violent record of death and killing. Anyone trying to portray the region as some peaceful little hamlet is either grossly naive or lying. Reporters who failed to communicate the full picture here have as much explaining to do as the Marines who are defending themselves.

UPDATE: Strata has a follow up post here, which has more details about the Al-Qaeda snuff films in Haditha.

UPDATE2: Scott Johnson of Power Line links to a Washington Post story that tells the Marines' side of the incident, in 'A Reasonable Doubt'.

Today's Washington Post carries Josh White's page-one story reporting the account of one of the Marines directly involved in events at Haditha: "Marine says rules were followed." White's story is the first such media report, though it comes indirectly from the Marine's attorney rather than from the Marine himself. At Democracy Project, Bruce Kesler comments: "Haditha: Now let's see who drive-by media believe." At Mudville Gazette, Greyhawk comments: "Haditha: The accused speak."

UPDATE3: Greyhawk has a timeline that raises even more questions.