Haditha massacre
The Haditha massacre was a series of killings on November 19, 2005, in which a group of United States Marines killed 25 unarmed Iraqi civilians. The killings occurred in the city of Haditha in Iraq's western province of Al Anbar. Among the dead were men, women, elderly people and children as young as one year old, who were shot multiple times at close range. The massacre took place after an improvised explosive device exploded near a convoy, killing a lance corporal and severely injuring two other marines. In response the marines killed five men from a nearby taxicab and 19 others inside four nearby homes.
An initial Marine Corps communique falsely reported that 15 civilians were killed by the bomb's blast and that eight insurgents were subsequently killed by the marines. A Time magazine reporter's questions prompted the US military to open an investigation into the incident. The investigation found evidence that "supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians", according to an anonymous Pentagon official. Three officers were officially reprimanded for failing to properly initially report and investigate the killings. On December 21, 2006, eight marines from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines were charged in connection with the incident.
By June 17, 2008, six defendants had their cases dropped and a seventh was found not guilty. The only one of the eight charged to face punishment was Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich. On October 3, 2007, the Article 32 hearing investigating officer recommended that charges of murder be dropped and Wuterich be tried for negligent homicide in the deaths of two women and five children. Further charges of assault and manslaughter were ultimately dropped. Wuterich pled guilty to the only remaining charge, one count of negligent dereliction of duty, and was convicted on January 24, 2012. Wuterich received a rank reduction and pay cut but avoided jail time. Iraqis expressed disbelief and voiced outrage after the six-year U.S. military prosecution ended with none of the marines sentenced to incarceration. A lawyer for the victims stated "this is an assault on humanity" before adding that he, as well as the government of Iraq, might bring the case to international courts.
Background
In September 2005, the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines deployed to Haditha, an agricultural town along the Euphrates river in western Iraq. Prior to the deployment, a Guardian investigation reported that two Iraqi insurgent groups—Ansar al-Sunna and Al-Qaeda—had taken over operations of the town after driving out local police and civil servants. Although the battalion had been told to expect a battle like in Fallujah, where coalition forces had driven out Iraqi insurgents from the city, the marines faced no resistance upon entering Haditha. In Haditha, the marines established a base inside an abandoned school, which they named Forward Operating Base Sparta, and spent their time patrolling the town for insurgent activity.While Iraqi insurgents were present in Haditha, and the town had been the site of several roadside bombings from makeshift explosives known as IEDs, insurgents rarely directly engaged with marines. Marines instead spent their time searching for insurgents, seizing munitions, and building rapport with local residents as part of the US military's "hearts and minds" campaign.
Killings
Roadside bombing
On November 19, 2005, a 3/1 resupply convoy triggered an IED explosion, killing one marine and injuring two others. Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas was killed instantly at 7:15 a.m. Terrazas was driving the Humvee when it was bisected by the explosion. Lance Corporal James Crossan was in the passenger seat and was thrown out of the vehicle and trapped under the rear passenger tire. Private First Class Salvador Guzman was in the back of the vehicle conducting security for the convoy and was thrown from the Humvee. Both Crossan and Guzman were taken to a landing zone to be evacuated for medical attention. Crossan was medically discharged from the Marines due to the wounds he received that day. Guzman returned to active duty after healing and went on a second deployment with 3/1 to Iraq in April 2007.Killings and immediate aftermath
Five Iraqi men were ordered out of their car and shot dead in the street, principally by Wuterich. After their deaths, Lieutenant William T. Kallop, according to his statements to investigators, arrived on the scene. Kallop and others reported taking small-arms fire, which they attributed to a nearby house. Kallop gave the order "to take the house". Nineteen of those killed were in three adjacent houses which Marines entered, employing grenades and small arms. According to Kallop,The Marines cleared it the way they had been trained to clear it, which is frags first.... It was clear just by the looks of the room that frags went in and then the house was prepped and sprayed like with a machine gun and then they went in. And by the looks of it, they just... they went in, cleared the room, everybody was down.
On November 20, 2005, a Marine press release from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported the deaths of a Marine and 15 civilians. It said the civilians' deaths resulted from a roadside bomb and Iraqi insurgents. The initial U.S. military statement read:
A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.
Iman Walid, a nine-year-old child who witnessed the incident, described the Marines entering their house. She said:
I couldn't see their faces very well - only their guns sticking in to the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny.
About an hour after the bombing, US marines opened fire on a group of men in the street. It is unclear how many were injured, but a 27-year-old man named Mamdouh Ahmed Hamad was mortally wounded after getting shot in the head. He died an hour later after being airlifted to Al-Asad Airbase.
The director of the local hospital in Haditha, Dr. Wahid, said two American Humvees brought the 24 bodies to the hospital around midnight on November 19. While the Marines claim that the victims had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb and that the men were saboteurs, Wahid said that there were "no organs slashed by shrapnel in any of the bodies". He further claimed that it appeared that "the victims were shot in the head and chest from close range."
Soon after the killings, the mayor of Haditha, Emad Jawad Hamza, led an angry delegation of elders to the Haditha Dam Marine base reportedly complaining to the base captain.
The Marine Corps paid US$38,000 total to the families of 15 of the dead civilians.
Evidence about the killings
Video shot by the co-founder of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, Taher Thabet, which instigated Tim McGirk's original Time magazine article, and cellphone photos reportedly taken by one of the Marines the day after the killings have been put forth as evidence that the killings were methodical and without resistance. The video showed the bodies of the women and children with gunshot wounds, bullet holes in the interior walls of the house, and bloodstains on the floor. Insufficient evidence has come to light to account for insurgents hiding in the houses that first came under attack.McGirk, who was based in Jerusalem, declined to testify at the hearings.
Investigations
Upon being told of questions by reporters concerning the Haditha killings, Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli instructed his public affairs office to brief them with the results of the military investigation, only to learn there had been no investigation. After video evidence which conflicted with the initial U.S. report was released, Chiarelli ordered a preliminary investigation on February 14, 2006.Two official U.S. military investigations began. The first, under United States Army Major General Eldon Bargewell, examined how the incident was reported through the chain of command. The second, headed by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, began on March 9, and examined the criminal aspects of the incident. The conduct of Wuterich, the squad leader, came under scrutiny.
On March 19, 2006, U.S. military officials confirmed that, contrary to the initial report, U.S. Marines, not Iraqi insurgents, killed 15 civilians.
On June 2, 2006, news outlets reported that 24 Iraqis had been killed, none as a result of the bomb explosion. This news predated the results of the U.S. military investigation, which found that the 24 unarmed Iraqis—including women and children as young as two years old—were killed by 12 members of K Company.
The Times published the result of the Bargewell investigation, including eyewitness interviews. It noted that the "official investigation has already resulted in the removal of Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, the commanding officer, and Captain Luke McConnell and 10-year-veteran Captain James Kimber, two company commanders, from their duties."
Bargewell's investigation found:
Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get "the job done" no matter what it takes. These comments had the potential to desensitize the Marines to concern for the Iraqi populace and portray them all as the enemy even if they are noncombatants.
On June 1, 2006, the Associated Press reported that the Iraqi government decided to launch its own probe. Adnan al-Kazimi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the decision was made during a Cabinet meeting. The probe was to be carried out by a special committee made up of the Justice and Human Rights ministries, along with security officials.
On June 17, 2006, the New York Times reported that "Investigators have also concluded that most of the victims in three houses died from well-aimed rifle shots, not shrapnel or random fire, according to military officials familiar with the initial findings." Many of those killed had wounds from close-range fire, and their death certificates record "well-aimed shots to the head and chest" as the cause of death.
The U.S. Marines avoided public statements about the killings.
In 2024 an investigation was launched by the In the Dark podcast regarding the shooting of a then unidentified man during the massacre. A break through in the investigation came after were awarded photos after a lawsuit against the army. Some of the photos showed an unidentified man who had been shot in the head, who did not match any of the known victims in the massacre, two of the photos showed the man's tattoos, the most notable of which being a circle with a marking in the middle on his left hand. They later discovered records which confirmed the man died of his injuries and identified him as Manda Amid Hamed, the man's name did not match any of the known victims, but did closely resemble the name of one Mamdouh Ahmed Hamad who was declared missing shortly after the massacre. The In the Dark podcast were able to contact Hamad's family in 2024 and showed them the photos of the unidentified man, and they correctly identified Manda Amid Hamed as being Mamdouh Ahmed Hamad who was 27-years-old at the time of his death. One of the marines that opened fire on Hamad was identified as Francis Wolf.