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A deadly day, and a grim future

As 54 people die, a Pentagon assessment is packed with bad news. Meanwhile, questions are raised about Marines' claims.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published May 31, 2006

BAGHDAD - A relentless onslaught of violence killed 54 people across Iraq on Tuesday, one of the bloodiest days of May, and there is no relief in sight - the Pentagon released a report saying that the Sunni Arab heart of the insurgency seems likely to hold its strength the rest of the year.

The report assessing the situation in Iraq, required quarterly by Congress, came on a day when the U.S. military command in Baghdad said 1,500 more combat troops have arrived in the country.

The report offered a relatively dim picture of economic progress, with few improvements in basic services like electricity, and it provided no promises of U.S. troop reductions any time soon.

The report did say the Iraqi army is gaining strength and taking more lead responsibility for security.

Meanwhile, the New York Times, citing a senior military official in Iraq who requested anonymity, reported that a military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by Marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha in November had been the victims of a roadside bomb.

Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the Marines' story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said.

The worst bombing Tuesday hit an outdoor market as Iraqis were doing their evening shopping in Husseiniyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. At least 25 people were killed and 65 were wounded, said Col. Falah Al-Mohamedawi, an Interior Ministry spokesman.

Hours earlier, a car packed with explosives blew up at a car dealership in the largely Shiite city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding 32, Capt. Muthana Khalid said.

A bomb hidden in a plastic bag also detonated outside a bakery in a religiously mixed neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 10, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said.

On Monday, 40 people were killed in various attacks, including a car bombing in Baghdad that killed two CBS News crewmen and seriously wounded network correspondent Kimberly Dozier. She underwent two emergency surgeries and was transferred to a U.S. military hospital in Germany, where she was reported to be in critical but stable condition with head and leg injuries. She briefly regained consciousness during the flight, opening her eyes and moving her toes, the network said.

Before Tuesday, at least 4,066 Iraqis had been killed in war-related violence this year, and at least 4,469 had been wounded, based on Associated Press reports. Those may not be complete, however.

During May, at least 871 Iraqis have been killed, surpassing the 801 killed in April. The deadliest month this year for Iraqis was March: 1,038 killed and 1,155 wounded.

The U.S. military commanders' move of about 1,500 combat troops from a reserve force in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar province is intended to help authorities establish order in the insurgent hotbed stretching from Baghdad west to Syria.

The military command in Iraq described the new deployment as short-term.

The Pentagon report said for the first time that the Sunnis who reject the U.S.-based government are collaborating with al-Qaida.

It said a separate element of the insurgency that U.S. officials describe as former loyalists of the Saddam Hussein regime remains an important enabler of the violence. But the Hussein loyalists have "mostly splintered" into other groups and are now "largely irrelevant" as a threat to the fledgling Iraqi government, said Lt. Gen. Victor E. Renuart, the head of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who helped prepare the report.

The report also said that while security in much of Iraq has improved, total attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces have increased after the Feb. 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

President Bush remained hopeful.

"Although there's been some very difficult times for the Iraqi people, I'm impressed by the courage of the leadership, impressed by the determination of the people," Bush said Tuesday in the Oval Office during the credentialing ceremony for Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United States.

Report: Investigation raises Haditha questions

The investigation into the Marines' claims that the civilian deaths in Haditha were caused by of a roadside bomb, which is being led by Col. Gregory Watt, an Army officer in Baghdad, has raised questions about whether the Marine squad involved followed established rules for identifying hostile threats when they assaulted houses near the site of a bomb attack, which killed a fellow Marine.

The three-week inquiry was the first official investigation into an episode that American military officials now say appears to have been an unprovoked attack by the Marines that killed 24 Iraqi civilians. The results of Watt's investigation, which began on Feb. 14, have not previously been disclosed.

The findings have not been made public, and the Pentagon and the Marines have refused to discuss the details of inquiries now under way, saying that to do so could compromise the investigation.

When Watt described the findings on March 9 to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the senior ground commander in Iraq, it raised enough questions about the Marines' veracity that Chiarelli referred the matter to the senior Marine commander in Iraq, who ordered a criminal investigation that officials say could result in murder charges being brought against members of the unit.

Watt's findings also prompted Chiarelli to order a parallel investigation into whether senior Marine officer and enlisted personnel had attempted to cover up what happened.

Watt's inquiry included interviews with Marines involved in the killings as well as with senior officers in the unit, the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment.

Among them were Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who officials had said was one of the senior noncommissioned officers on the patrol, and Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the battalion commander. Chessani was relieved of his command in April, after the unit returned from Iraq.

In their accounts to Watt, the Marines said they took gunfire from the first of five residences they entered near the bomb site, according to the senior military official.

The official said the Marines had recalled hearing "a weapon being prepared to be used against them."

Watt also reviewed payments totaling $38,000 in cash made within weeks of the incident to families of victims.

In an interview Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt, the officer who made the payments, said he was told by superiors to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but was told that eight of those killed had been deemed to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.

After the initial payments were made, however, those family members demanded similar payments, insisting their relatives had not attacked the Marines, Hyatt said.

Hyatt said he was authorized by Chessani and by even more senior officers at the Marines' regimental headquarters to make the payments to relatives of 15 of the victims.

Chessani "was part of the chain of command that gives the approval. Even when he signs off on it, it still has to go up to" the unit's regimental headquarters.

The list of 15 victims deemed to be noncombatants was put together by intelligence personnel attached to the battalion, Hyatt said. All of them lived in two of the houses and were related to a member of the Haditha city council, he said.

Each victim was compensated with a $2,500 payment, the maximum allowed under Marine rules, to relatives, along with $250 payments for two children who were injured in the attack. Hyatt said he also compensated the families for damage to two houses.

"I didn't say we had made a mistake," Hyatt said, describing what he had told the city council member who was representing the victims. "I said I'm being told I can make payments for these 15 because they were deemed not to be involved in combat."

The military began its examination of the killings in Haditha only after Time magazine, in late January, presented findings of their investigation to a military spokesman in Baghdad.

On Tuesday, White House spokesman, Tony Snow said that President Bush first became aware of the episode after the Time inquiry.

He said that national security adviser Stephen Hadley, briefed Bush upon news of it, an indication of the seriousness with which the episode was regarded by the White House.

Other Iraq developments

n Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki held a day of meetings aimed at getting ethnic, sectarian and secular factions to agree on interior and defense ministers. But the key security posts remained vacant 10 days after Maliki's national unity government took office. The Interior Ministry, which controls the police, has been promised to the Shiites. Sunni Arabs are to get the defense ministry, overseeing the army.

n In Baghdad, a roadside bomb also killed one police officer and wounded four others, and police found nine shooting victims.

n The prime minister's office said suspected terrorist Ahmed Hussein Dabash Samir al-Batawi was captured Monday and confessed to hundreds of beheadings around the country. Police also said three unidentified insurgents described as well-known aides of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were killed last week during clashes in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

n The military said a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier Tuesday southeast of Baghdad, and small-arms fire killed an American soldier Monday in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. The bodies of two Marines missing after a helicopter crash in western Iraq over the weekend also were recovered.

n Italy said it will pull its 2,600 troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. South Korea, the third-largest contributor of forces in the 26-member coalition, began bringing troops home this week as part of a plan to withdraw about 1,000 of its 3,200 soldiers by year's end.

n During Saddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad, an anonymous defense witness stunned the court that is trying Hussein and fellow regime members by testifying that nearly two dozen Shiites the defendants are accused of killing are still alive.

Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified May 31, 2006, 05:18:07]