Possible Massacre By Yank Marines

Enough material has now been leaked to the media here to suggest to many Americans that the allegations are very serious and may well be true.

John Murtha, a former marine and Vietnam veteran who is now an anti-war Democratic congressman, said he believed civilians had been murdered in Haditha and senior officers had made an attempt to hide it.

"I know there was a cover-up someplace. They knew about this a few days afterwards," he told ABC television earlier this week.

The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.
The video appears to challenge the US military's account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.

The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people.

A US military investigation has found there was no misconduct by US troops over Iraqi civilian deaths in the town of Ishaqi, defence officials say.

Military officials told the BBC on Friday that the investigation into events in Ishaqi found no wrongdoing on the part of the troops.

Officials said soldiers had followed all the correct procedures when they came under fire as they approached the house. The full results of the investigation have not yet been released.

I thought it was a public enquiry? Well I'm sure there would have been different results if it were.

Did you notice how up in arms the British Millitary were when that Deepcut inquiry went public?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. military probe has exonerated U.S. troops in the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the town of Ishaqi in March, finding American forces followed standard procedures and committed no misconduct, defense officials said on Friday.

The Ishaqi incident was one of a handful involving civilian deaths being investigated by the U.S. military, including the deaths of 24 civilians in the town of Haditha last November.

Police in Ishaqi, 60 miles north of Baghdad, have said six adults and five children were shot dead in a U.S. military raid on a home on March 15.

The U.S. military maintains there were four dead in the incident, including a guerrilla, two women and a child, and said they died after troops were fired upon from the house as they arrived to arrest an al Qaeda suspect.

The defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said an investigation found no wrongdoing by U.S. forces.

The officials said a military fact-finding inquiry determined that U.S. forces followed proper procedures and that the civilian deaths were unintentional.

In the Haditha case, which some commentators are comparing to the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the military is investigating civilian deaths in the town west of Baghdad on November 19.

The military is investigating whether U.S. Marines went on a rampage after a comrade was killed by an insurgent roadside bomb and shot dead two dozen civilians, including women and children. U.S. defense officials have said Marines could face charges including murder.

A military spokesman announced the investigation into the Ishaqi incident on March 21.

NIGHTTIME RAID

U.S. officials described a nighttime raid aimed at finding a specific guerrilla, who then fled the building but was later caught. Another guerrilla who fired from the building was killed in the raid, they said.

"When the assault force arrived, they took fire," said one official. The U.S. troops then pulled back and called in air support from an AC-130 gunship, and U.S. forces then fired on the house, the official said.

No further investigation of the incident is planned by the U.S. military, the official said.

Police in Ishaqi have offered a different account. Police said five children, four women and two men were shot dead by troops in a house that was then blown up.

They said all the victims were shot in the head, and that the bodies, with hands bound, were dumped in one room before the house was destroyed. Television footage showed the bodies in a morgue. Their wounds were not clear, although one infant had a gaping head wound.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said he is losing patience with reports of U.S. troops killing civilians. Many Iraqis believe unjustified killings by U.S. troops are common, but few have been confirmed by official investigations.

The White House said on Friday it shares Maliki's concerns about civilian deaths in Iraq, allegedly by U.S. Marines, and emphasized Washington wants to work with him.

Maliki said on Friday the Iraqi government will demand the United States share files from the investigation of the killings in Haditha. On Thursday, he decried the deaths as "a terrible crime where women and children were eliminated."

The U.S. military on Thursday directed troops in Iraq to undergo new training on the need to follow legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield.

Afraid not laddy.

It was a military investigation. The military can and will cover up anything that would prove detrimental to their work in Iraq. Think about it - if they had found that the marines did massacre innocents, suddenly every Coalition solider is a target from extremely pissed off Iraqis.

The interview with the little girl proved it all. She stated, second by second, what the marines did. All her accusations coincided with the instances of gunfire and explosions reported by surrounding witnesses, unlike the statements of the marines. They did it.

As for a cover-up, they could've done the same for Abu Ghraib Prison incident, but didnt.