(Reuters) - The U.S. Marine sergeant accused of leading a massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha pleaded guilty on Monday to dereliction of duty, ending the final prosecution stemming from a 2005 incident that brought international condemnation of U.S. troops.
Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 31, entered his plea as part of a deal with military prosecutors in which more serious charges of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault were dismissed.
Wuterich was initially charged with murder.
He now faces a maximum sentence of three months of confinement, forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay for three months and a reduction in rank when he is sentenced on Tuesday at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base north of San Diego, a base spokesman said.
Wuterich, 31, was accused of being the ringleader in a series of November 19, 2005, shooting and grenade attacks that left two dozen civilians dead in Haditha, a city west of Baghdad that was then a hotbed of insurgent activity...
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Post subject: Re: Ringleader of Haditha Massacre Pleads Guilty
Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:06 pm
Archon
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:23 am Posts: 14219
Seems like the DoD slow walked the prosecution, in order to let the evidence go stale, so it wouldn't come out.
Now, it may be so that he didn't say "kill em all" but rather "shoot first and ask questions later" but in the modern military, within the context of the moral use of weapons, I would say that "shoot first and ask questions later" is wanton indiscriminate killing, and therefore, a mass murder.
Our soldiers are expected to be better than that, and they know it.
I don't care if you are taking fire. I don't care if you are taking casualties. That is what you offered yourself up to do.
A murderous rampage is a murderous rampage. It's not a tactic, it is a capital offense.
_________________ "This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear. . .is fear itself. . . nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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