Photos of the mass killing by U.S. Marines have been kept hidden for decades, making the atrocity relatively unknown. Now The New Yorker has released 10 of them.
A U.S. Marine inspecting a roadside near Haditha, Iraq, where five unarmed civilians were killed on Nov. 19, 2005. (Naval Criminal Investigative Service via the Washington Post, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams
After years of working with Iraqis whose relatives were killed by U.S. Marines in the 2005 Haditha massacre, American journalists finally obtained and released photos showing the grisly aftermath of the bloody rampage — whose perpetrators never spent a day behind bars.
This week, The New Yorker published 10 of the massacre photos — part of a collaboration with the “In the Dark” podcast that joined the magazine last year.
The podcast’s reporting team had filed its public records request four years ago, then sued the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Central Command over their failure to hand over the images. “In the Dark” host Madeleine Baran also traveled with a colleague to Iraq’s remote Anbar Province to meet relatives of some of the 24 Iraqi civilians — who ranged in age from 1 to 76— slaughtered by U.S. troops.
Baran explained that she sought the relatives’ help partly because “we anticipated that the government would claim that the release of the photos would harm the surviving family members of the dead,” as “military prosecutors had already made this argument after the trial of the final accused Marine.”
The bodies of five Iraqi civillians murdered by U.S. Marines in the Haditha, Iraq, massacre. (U.S. Marine Corps, via Madeleine Baran on Aug. 27, 2024. “The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See,” The New Yorker, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Khalid Salman Raseef, an attorney who lost 15 members of his family in the massacre, told Baran that “I believe this is our duty to tell the truth.”
The graphic photos show dead Iraqi men, women, and children, many of them shot in the head at close range. One 5-year-old girl, Zainab Younis Salim, is shown with the number 11 written on her back in red marker by a U.S. Marine who wanted to differentiate the victims in photos.
Bodies of Jaheed Abdul Hameed Hassan, 43; Asmaa Salman Raseef, 32, and her son Abdullah, 4, murdered by the United States Marine Corps. A military medical examiner concluded that Jaheed was either standing against the wall or lying down when he was shot and killed. (U.S. Marine Corps, via Madeleine Baran, Aug. 27, 2024, “The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See,” The New Yorker, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
On Nov. 19, 2005, a convoy of Humvees carrying Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, First Marine Division was traveling through Haditha when a roadside bomb believed to have been placed by Iraqis resisting the U.S. invasion killed Miguel Terrazas, a popular lance corporal, and wounded two other Marines.
Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich in undated photo. (U.S. Navy, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
In retaliation, Marines forced a nearby taxicab to stop and ordered the driver and his four student passengers out of the vehicle. Sgt. Frank Wuterich then executed the five men in cold blood. Another Marine then desecrated their bodies, including by urinating on them.
Wuterich then ordered his men to “shoot first and ask questions later,” and they went house to house killing everyone they saw. They killed seven people in the Walid family home, including a toddler and an elderly couple.
“I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny,” Iman Walid, a survivor who was 8 years old when her family was slain, told Time in 2006.
Next, the Marines killed eight people in the Salim family home, six of them children. Finally, the troops executed four brothers in a closet in the Ahmad family home.
Photos from the Marine Corp's 2005 Haditha Massacre in Iraq were just acquired under the Freedom of Information Act.
This is big. US interventionism must end now. pic.twitter.com/ES1bPCf3cg
— Greg J Stoker (@gregjstoker) August 28, 2024
The Marines subsequently conspired to cover up what a military probe would deem a case of “collateral damage.” The military initially claimed that 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the same explosion that took Terrazas’ life. However, a local doctor who examined the victims’ bodies said they “were shot in the chest and head from close range.”
The body of 4-year-old Zainab Younis Salim after the U.S. Marine Corps shot her in the head in the Haditha massacre. Her body has been marked with the number 11 in red sharpie, to distinguish the dead bodies in the photos. (U.S. Marine Corps, via Madeleine Baran, Aug. 27, 2024, “The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See,” The New Yorker, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Eight Marines were eventually charged in connection with the massacre. Six defendants were found not guilty and one had their case dismissed. Initially charged with murder, Wuterich pleaded guilty and was convicted of dereliction of duty. He was punished with a reduction in rank and was later honorably discharged from service.
Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis — who earned his “Mad Dog” moniker during one of the atrocity-laden battles for the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 — intervened on behalf of the Haditha defendants and personally dismissed charges against one of them.
Later, while serving as former President Donald Trump’s defense secretary, Mattis oversaw an escalation in what he called the U.S. war of “annihilation” against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The general warned that “civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation,” and thousands of men, women, and children were subsequently slaughtered as cities including Mosul and Raqqa were leveled.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis speaks during a town hall at U.S. Northern Command headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., Nov. 16, 2017. (DoD photo by Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)
The Haditha massacre was part of countless U.S. war crimes and atrocities committed during the ongoing so-called War on Terror, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian lives in at least half a dozen countries since 2001. One of the reasons why the Haditha massacre is relatively unknown compared with the torture and killings at the U.S. military prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq is that photos of the former crime have been kept hidden for decades.
“The impact of an alleged war crime is often directly related to the horror of the images that end up in the hands of the public,” Baran wrote in the New Yorker article. She noted that Gen. Michael Hagee, who commanded the Marines at the time of the Haditha massacre, later boasted how “proud” he was about keeping photos of the killings secret.
“This,” journalist Murtaza Hussain reminded the world on Tuesday, “is what the U.S. military was doing in Iraq.”
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Thank You Brett
Bradley Manning was in solitary for years for releasing the Reuters murders by Ranger helicopters, and Julian Assange was persecuted for a decade for publicizing them. More Americans approved of Lt. Calley’s My Lai slaughter than approved of the reporter who uncovered it. Of course, these all pale compared to our intentional fire and nuke bombing of a million civilians in Germany and Japan at the end of WW2: official notes said the purpose was to “break the morale of the population … to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death.”
And we never even say we’re sorry. Because we aren’t. And intend to keep doing it, again and again. We have lost our souls as a nation, and I grieve for us and all in our way.
The US army can only rival the Israeli army in being the most moral worldwide.
Coincidentally I was just reading about this atrocity in Robert Fisk’s book: Night of Power.
We also see exactly the same behaviour from the Israelis in gaza. Sadly some things never change, and it always seems to be the same people carrying out the atrocities with no repercussions.
I was in Baghdad as part of an international anti war peace delegation and was lucky to escape alive as the invasion began.Me and two others were hidden by sympathisers and then managed to flee. The American Special Services is a polite name for uniformed psychopaths let loose on innocent civilians.
“Thank you for your service”…?
When oh when will there be accountability for the egregious foreign policy of the US and its vassals? Where has the UN been all these years as these atrocities have happened? We know they were aware. Is every country on this planet so frightened of the mighty military empire that they dare not challenge massacre after massacre? Enough! We have the proof. This must not continue. Jail these bastards! Every last one of them!
May their souls rest in peace!
Over the past 70 years, the United Snakes has rampaged around the planet like Nazi Germany on steroids, slaughtering, starving and immiserating hundreds of millions of people, yes, hundreds of millions, with complete impunity. “If they want their people to eat, they have to do as they’re told.” Until the amerikunts themselves experience what they have inflicted on so many others for so long, starving and freezing in the rubble of their ruined cities, and watching their children die in front of them, for lack of food and basic medicine, like the Germans in 1945, they will never clean up their act. But this day may be coming soon. A lot sooner than they expect. The world is changing fast. This arrogant low life needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Payback is coming for every murdered child.
Q What do the US & Israel have in common?
A They both rejoice in killing Muslims.
“Judaeo-Christian culture”?
I have to wonder at times. This could be the result of inexperienced combat troops “losing it” because of shock. Occasionally one might witness returning combat vets discussing the fact that some units / individuals were issued amphetamines to maintain alertness.
Intense combat situation such IED attacks can create surreal atmospheres during which emotions runaway in the witnesses and those involved in the mayhem. Mix in some high quality “Speed” and the results can be horrific.
Just check out what happens everyday on the streets of America. No justification for this behavior, none, combat or not, exists and Jim Mattis is a scourge on the U.S. military and has brought disgrace to the Marine Corp. The man should be jailed.
Our military is or should be an example of American pride, I fear it has fallen into despair.
Never forget most serve with pride and deserve our respect for doing what most would never attempt. Defending our country. I fear that mission has become corrupted by evil people.
See Johnathan Cook’s contribution here.
I have no more respect for those in our military than I do for mob hit-men, because that’s all our military has been used for over the past six decades (or more if one considers the Korean War to have been just another exercise by the West in sustaining its dominance over the rest of the world). The only attack of any significance that our country has experienced since WWII occurred on 9/11 and our behavior for decades prior to that (and after it as well) made it a response that we deserved and the men who gave their lives that day in order to defend their own people and countries are the ones I respect.
I suppose there may be people in our military who manage to delude themselves into thinking that they actually are ‘defending our country’ and perhaps gaining some cachet from people like you who seem to think so as well. Another possible consideration is that given the level of poverty in our country there may also be some who feel that they have no other way to support their families, but that still makes them paid killers or when they are just used to threaten paid extortionists. Now that there is no longer a draft to threaten them with jail time its existence may have made it easier to pass off the killing they might have to perform with the excuse ‘my country made me do it’ but in fact there’s still a choice they have to weigh and the amount of PTSD they return home with suggests that the choice may weigh more upon them than they might have expected, and when they don’t get to come home at all their families may have felt they paid a higher price for their warrior than they expected to.
Mr. Todd I’m about write something you and others may see as disingenuous, I beg of you give this Grumpy Old Man a chance.
Number one until someone has been drafted at 18 or 19 they simply fail to understand how much a person can loath the military and the experience. This experience has driven my attitude about politics and murder ever since.
The thought of the number of unnecessary deaths that have occurred since Vietnam at the hands of the U.S. is unforgivable. So much of this history could have been handled so much differently. And it is shameful to not recognize this at this juncture.
Turns out for me, the result was all about respect. Something I have little of for our nation’s leadership these days.
Take for instance 911 and event I firmly believe was the result of a failure of said leadership. Allowed to occur by very evil individuals in the U.S.! So , there, I’ve said it and I believe it.
I never served in country in Vietnam. I spent my time in Berlin Germany and learned from the experience how insane the military had become. Think about this, as a draftee I ended up in civilian clothes and was a “Spook”. How in the name of Dog does that happen. I can tell you it was the strangest experience of my life.
My gosh I’d like to talk to you one on one. I’m impressed with your directness and the extreme efficiency of you words here. I have a strong sense and believe you speak from your heart.
I’m of the mind that neocons and Zionist’s military involvement has ruined our country.
Bill, believe it or not I have believed since my Army experience that America eats it’s young. Maybe the most shameful act the counties government involves itself in. Those leaders waste lives of some of our best and brightest. Ask Pat Tillman’s family.
I have no idea of how old you are but it makes a difference to me. I fear you not believing what I’m about to say.
I agree with everything you have written here and I’m overwhelmed to see it!
So much for joining the military.
Thank you for caring so much!
They were “serving” in a criminal war of aggression, which means every death there was the fault of the US. They were NOT “defending their country”! Jesus Christ! For God’s sake, enough of the crap about most soldiers being honorable. It’s nothing but an excuse for endless war and mass murder.
And yet over the past 8 years MSNBC and other sufferers of TDS have been cozying up to the Cheney, Kristol, neo-con et al. slimeballs.
It has been asked elsewhere: How many children all over the world at night pray that Americans will not kill their parents?