The Haditha shootings: What the witnesses saw

WASHINGTON — Marines gunned down five unarmed Iraqis who stumbled onto the scene of a 2005 roadside bombing in Haditha, Iraq, according to eyewitness accounts that are part of a lengthy investigative report obtained by The Washington Post.

Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the squad's leader, shot the men one by one after Marines ordered them out of a white taxi moments after the explosion, which killed one Marine and injured two others, witnesses told investigators. Another Marine fired rounds into their bodies on the ground.

"The taxi's five occupants exited the vehicle and according to U.S. and Iraqi witnesses, were shot by Wuterich as they stood, unarmed, next to the vehicle approximately ten feet in front of him," said a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

Sgt. Asad Amer Mashoot, a 26-year-old Iraqi soldier who was in the Marine convoy, told investigators he watched in horror as the four students and taxi driver fell. "They didn't even try to run away," he said. "We were afraid from Marines and we saw them behaving like crazy. They were yelling and screaming."

The shootings were the first in a series of violent reactions by Marines on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, that left 24 civilians — many of them women and children — dead.

The report, which relied on hundreds of interviews with Marines, Iraqi soldiers and civilian survivors, presents a fragmented and sometimes conflicting chronicle of the violence. Taken together, however, the accounts provide evidence that the Marines responded in ways that are difficult to reconcile with their rules of engagement.

Four Marines were charged with murder last month in connection with the Haditha civilian deaths: Wuterich, who faces 13 counts of unpremeditated murder; Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz; Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt; and Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum. Each faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

Through their lawyers, three have argued that they behaved appropriately while taking fire in an especially dangerous area. Dela Cruz's attorney has declined to comment.

The Marine Corps also has charged four officers with failing to investigate and fully report the slayings: Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, Capt. Randy W. Stone and Lt. Andrew A. Grayson.

The Marines told investigators that they believed they were authorized to fire freely inside two houses raided in the minutes after the taxi shootings, after concluding that insurgents were firing on them. After an officer ordered them to "take" one of the homes and Wuterich commanded them to "shoot first, ask questions later," the Marines considered the houses "hostile," according to sworn statements.

Marine officials have accused the troops of failing to identify their targets before using grenades and guns to kill 14 unarmed people in the houses, including several young children in their pajamas, in a span of about 10 minutes, according to documents.

Safah Yunis Salem, 13, who said she played dead to avoid being shot, was the only survivor of the Marine attack on the second house. Her sister Aisha, 3, was shot in the leg and died; her brother Zainab, 5, was killed by a shot to the head. She said she lost six other members of her family.

"He fired and killed everybody," Safah said. "The American fired and killed everybody."

Numerous officers — including a major general — knew about the civilian deaths almost immediately but did not launch an investigation for months, according to interviews. Wuterich told investigators in a February interview, "I want to make clear that we did not go in intentionally to spray everyone we saw. We were taking fire."

Marine Corps and NCIS officials declined to comment because the case is ongoing.

Routine mission turns violent

The report provides a detailed narrative of events leading to the Haditha violence. The day began about 6 a.m., when squad members learned they would be bringing fresh Iraqi troops to a traffic checkpoint. The Marines made the personnel changes by about 7 a.m., then turned their four-vehicle convoy around and headed back. Sharratt, in the turret of the first Humvee, waved a white sedan to the side of "Route Chestnut," and a blast rocked the neighborhood as the car slid to the shoulder.

Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, driving the fourth Humvee, was killed instantly by the remotely detonated propane tank. Another Marine, severely injured, was trapped in the wreckage.

Marines told investigators they took enemy rifle fire from several locations on both sides of the road. Some fire appeared to be coming from behind the white taxi.

The Marines concurred that they were under fire from all sides, indicating a complex insurgent attack.

One Marine and two Iraqi soldiers told investigators that the men who had been in the taxi were standing in a line outside it, some with their hands up, when Wuterich began to fire on them.

Wuterich said the men got out of the car, and he shot them because he considered them a threat. Dela Cruz contradicted that account.

"As I crossed the median I saw one of the Iraqi civilians, who was standing in the center of the line, drop to the ground," Dela Cruz told investigators. "Immediately afterwards another Iraqi standing by him raised his hands to his head. I then heard other small arms fire and looked to my left and saw Sgt. Wuterich kneeling on one knee and shooting his M16 in the direction of the Iraqi civilians."

Dela Cruz told investigators that he pumped bullets into the bodies of the Iraqi men after they were on the ground and later urinated on one of them.

Minutes later, a Quick Reaction Force arrived, bringing Lt. William T. Kallop, the first officer on the scene. Kallop said he received enemy fire almost immediately. About that time, Cpl. Hector A. Salinas spotted a man firing at the squad from the corner of a house on the south side of the road.

"Salinas then stated that he could see the enemy so Kallop told them to 'take the house,' " according to an NCIS summary of an interview with Kallop. The interview provides the first evidence that an officer ordered the attack.

Richard McNeil, a lawyer who represents Kallop, declined to comment, but warned that "typically in an NCIS investigation, the narratives are always slanted to the interpretation of the government."

Wuterich, Salinas, Tatum and Lance Cpl. Humberto M. Mendoza formed a team to attack the house, launching grenades and then busting through the door.

"I told them to treat it as a hostile environment," Wuterich told investigators. "I told them to shoot first, ask questions later."

Defense attorneys have argued that the men were following their "rules of engagement." The Marine division's Rules of Engagement card in effect at the time in western Iraq instructed Marines to "ALWAYS minimize collateral damage" and said targets must be positively identified as threats before a Marine can open fire. It also told Marines that "nothing on this card prevents you from using all force necessary to defend yourself."

After entering the first house through a kitchen, Tatum told investigators, he heard what he believed was an AK-47 rifle being "racked," or readied to fire, around a corner. He and Salinas tossed grenades into the room, according to documents. Walid Hasan, 37, was killed. Khamisa Ali, 66, was shot dead in the hallway. Four others were killed in a bedroom by grenades and rifle fire.

Iman Walid Abdul-Hamid, 9, told investigators that a grenade exploded near her grandfather's bed. Her mother and 4-year-old brother were killed as she huddled, injured, with another brother, Abdul Rahman, 6, who survived. "All rooms," Abdul told investigators. "They were shooting in all rooms."

Several Marines said they quickly cleared the home, shooting through dust, debris and darkness to eliminate what they believed was a threat.

From there, Wuterich, Mendoza and Tatum said, they moved to a second house after suspecting insurgents might have escaped. Mendoza said the second house was approached the same way, as hostile, according to his sworn statement. Mendoza said he shot to death a man, Yunis Rasif, 43, through a glass kitchen door.

Marines entered the house and tossed grenades before firing into a back bedroom, later found filled with women and children.

"Knowing what I know now, I feel badly about killing Iraqi civilians who may have been innocent, but I stand fast in my decisions that day, as I reacted to the threats that I perceived at the time," Tatum said. "I did not shoot randomly with the intent to harm innocent Iraqi civilians."

Mashoot, the Iraqi soldier who was with the Marines, said he thought the attack on the houses was warranted because the convoy was taking fire.

Another group of Marines, including Dela Cruz, took several Iraqis into custody, according to documents, but did not shoot anyone in a search of several houses. Another man was shot after Marines observed him running along a ridgeline.

Hours later, Sharratt, Wuterich and Salinas approached a third and fourth house after noticing men they said were peering at them suspiciously.

What happened there is unclear. Iraqi witnesses said Marines angrily separated men and women into two lines before marching the men into the fourth house and shooting them. The three Marines told investigators they were searching for the men they had seen and separated the women into a safe area before Wuterich and Sharratt entered the house.

Sharratt told investigators he saw a man raise an AK-47 rifle. Sharratt said his gun jammed, but he grabbed his 9 mm handgun and shot the attacker. He said he saw another man with a rifle and shot him and two others because he "felt threatened." Wuterich also shot at the men, he said.

Sharratt has been charged with unpremeditated murder in three of the slayings. Gary Myers, a lawyer representing Sharratt, declined to comment Friday.

At first, no inquiry

The military did not launch an inquiry until a Time magazine reporter began to inquire about the incident two months later. Marine officers said nothing in the field reports caused them to believe a probe was warranted.

Investigators appear to have found little evidence that Marines on the ground or at headquarters tried to conceal the day's events. But Dela Cruz said Wuterich asked him to back up claims that the men in the taxi were trying to flee.

Neal Puckett, Wuterich's lawyer, challenged Dela Cruz's assertion: "Staff Sergeant Wuterich adamantly denies asking anybody to lie or change their story."

The documents show that Marines in Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, made clear that there were a significant number of civilian casualties. Marines at first classified eight civilians as insurgents, but quickly reported that at least 15 civilians had been killed by "crossfire" with the enemy.

The events came amid heavy insurgent attacks in Haditha that day that ultimately prompted Marines to call in airstrikes on suspected insurgent homes. The hectic nature of the day caused some early reports to be confused and inaccurate, Marines told investigators.

Marine officers said Chessani, the Marines' battalion commander, immediately informed his superior, Col. Stephen W. Davis, of the civilian casualties and was told no investigation was needed.

"There was nothing out of the ordinary about any of this, including the number of civilian dead, that would have triggered anything in my mind that was out of the norm," Davis told investigators.

Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the division commander, said he learned about the civilian casualties on the day they occurred and believed that they were the result of a roadside bomb and the ensuing gunbattle between Marines and insurgents. Huck visited Haditha three days later and was briefed on the incident.

McConnell and Chessani have been charged; Huck and Davis have not. Attempts to reach Chessani or an attorney for him were not successful.

In December 2005, the Marines authorized $38,000 in condolence payments to families of the civilians killed in the first two houses, and Chessani, in early February, explained the payments in a memo. "The enemy chose the time and place of his ambush. Without callous disregard for the lives of innocent bystanders, the enemy would not have chosen to fight from the bedrooms and living rooms of civilian-occupied houses," he wrote.

The official inquiry began in February, after the Time reporter raised the possibility to Marine officials in Iraq that Marines had massacred civilians and executed the men from the taxi.

Huck told investigators he believed the allegations were part of an insurgent smear campaign. Other officers, such as Davis, also believed that the allegations were outlandish.

But Maj. Samuel H. Carrasco, then a battalion operations officer, said he and the battalion executive officer suggested an investigation to Chessani. Carrasco said, "Lt. Col. Chessani then shouted, 'My men are not murderers!' "

The first investigation, by Army Col. Gregory Watt, ordered by Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, then the top field commander in Iraq, essentially supported the Marines' accounts. Watt determined that the troops had reason to be suspicious of the men in the white car and concluded that a positive identification of targets in the houses might have been "unrealistic to expect."

He also found no indication that the Marines "intentionally targeted, engaged and killed noncombatants," but he suggested a criminal investigation nonetheless. The NCIS investigation began March 12.

Washington Post researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.