Times Clouds Things Even More

The New York Times has an article entitled, "Contradictions Cloud Inquiry Into 24 Iraqi Deaths," which published on their website late last night. It begins:

What really happened in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005?

On that day, marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians, including 10 women and children and an elderly man in a wheelchair. But how and why it happened and who ultimately bears responsibility are matters of profound dispute.

Interviews with marines who were present that day or their lawyers, Iraqi residents who witnessed the attack and military investigators provide broadly conflicting accounts of the killings. This article, based on those interviews, does not resolve those discrepancies. But it does lay bare the task facing investigators as they try to square the accounts with ambiguous forensic evidence, and suggests that the work will be hindered by the passage of time, the tricks of memory and the fog of fast-paced action at several different locations in Haditha, a tense Euphrates River valley city, seven months ago.

It then goes on to describe a number of conflicting elements in the information so far either leaked to the media by unnamed "investigators" or by representatives of the Marines under investigation. The report states that "officials familiar with the investigation" say the men in the taxi were not fleeing the scene and that "well-aimed rifle shots" killed the civilians.

However, they state all these assertions with no supporting evidence and with no context. Because they are writing some pretty harsh accusations based on unnamed sources, the reader has no way to evaluate the relative trustworthiness of the source. Then they report completely contradictory information from supposed eyewitnesses.

Some described the men as students on their way to a technical college in Baghdad, and said they had been shot while still sitting in the car. Others said they had been pulled from the car, ordered to lie on the ground and then executed.

Those are two wildly different accounts, not even close to one another. That's usually a pretty good indication that someone is lying. Not mistaken, lying. Then the report follows that up with this:

According to Mr. Puckett, Sergeant Wuterich and his men believed their rules of engagement permitted them to shoot men of military age running away from the site of an improvised explosive device.

Two people briefed on the investigation said Thursday that evidence gathered on the shooting of the taxi passengers now appeared to be the most at odds with the account given by marines through their lawyers.

One Defense Department official said photographs indicated that the positions of those corpses — and the pooling of their blood — can be viewed as sharply inconsistent with the marines' version that the Iraqi men were shot as they fled.

"We may not know for sure what happened, but it doesn't look like there was any running involved," said the official, who would only discuss the inquiry on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains under investigation.

A second person who has been briefed on the inquiry said that "there was no question" that the taxi shooting "is the most problematic" and that Navy investigators were focusing on the actions of one particular marine in the squad, although no charges had been filed.

Now, that sounds like someone speaking authoritatively, but is it really? All they are saying here is that there are problems with the versions. Drawing conclusions from photographs can be extremely tricky, too. Drawing conclusions based on the signed death certificates and morgue photos is highly questionable when no bodies have been exhumed as yet, either.

Which leads to the inevitable question; why haven't the bodies been exhumed? It would seem that rather than talking to reporters, investigators and sources close to the investigation would be better off doing their duty to perform a solid, thorough investigation.

And the New York Times could do better than blowing more smoke at an already clouded story. Let the investigation be concluded in the proper manner without these orgies of press speculation, please.

UPDATE: Bruce Kesler offers his thoughts on the story.