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Haditha Officer Betrayed by Government, Lawyers say Phil Brennan, NewsMax The recommendation of a hearing officer that Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani be court-martialed on charges of dereliction of duty "deal more with political correctness than with criminality," lawyers representing Chessani charged Wednesday night. On Wednesday, Col. Christopher Conlin, the investigating officer in Chessani's Article 32 hearing held to determine if Chessani should be court-martialed on charges of dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order, recommended that Chessani be court-martialed. The report claimed Chessani failed to report and investigate the deaths of Iraqi men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq in November 2005, after a fierce military engagement between U.S. Marines and insurgents. Conlin wrote that Chessani should face all charges, stating that he "failed to thoroughly and accurately report and investigate a combat engagement that clearly needed scrutiny." The Haditha incident became controversial almost four months after the incident passed, when Time magazine reported on wild allegations that the Marines had massacred innocent civilians. Additional claims alleged that officers like Chessani were involved in a "cover-up" of the incident. Richard Thompson, the president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, serves as counsel to Lt. Col. Chessani.
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Thompson told NewsMax that his client is chastised in the hearing officer's report because "he had more confidence in his men than in insurgent propaganda. "It glorifies paper pushing over fighting and has the unintended consequence of dampening the spirit of the most ferocious fighters on Earth," he said in a statement given to NewsMax. "This fight is about the future of the American fighting man. If good officers and men like Lt. Col. Chessani can't react to combat situations the way they were trained, if our young soldiers are forced to hesitate in battle because they may be criminally charged by their own government, they will be killed. "Further, if the higher command doesn't correct the injustice of this flawed recommendation, ultimately there will be no aggressive military left to defend the life of our nation." According to the Law Center, the case is "the consequence of Congressman [John] Murtha's politically motivated statements against Lt. Col. Chessani and his Marines, as well as the terrorist inspired story in Time Magazine. Like the great tradition of the Marines, the Law Center will continue to press this fight forward until we have won victory for Lt. Col. Chessani." After the Time reports, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., had told reporters in May, 2006 that the Marines in the Haditha incident had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
The report on Chessani comes on the heels of another report issued this week stemming from the Haditha incident involving an enlisted Marine, L/Cpl. Sharrat, who had been alleged to have committed murder. A different investigating Officer, Lt. Col. Ware, USMC, investigated the Haditha matter and claims made against Sharrat and "recommended in the strongest possible terms that murder charges be dropped against L/Cpl. Sharrat." In his report, Lt. Col. Ware surmised, "The government's version may encourage others to bear false witness against Marines as a tactic to erode public support of the Marine Corps and its mission in Iraq. Even more dangerous is the potential that a Marine may hesitate at the critical moment when facing the enemy." "This echoes a sentiment that the Law Center has been making since the beginning of its defense of Lt. Col. Chessani," Thompson said. Lt. Gen. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, will be the final arbiter of whether this case against Lt. Col. Chessani goes to general courts-martial, or goes away. He is not bound by this recommendation from Col. Christopher Conlin. The Law Center has five days to write a rebuttal to the report. Brian Rooney, one of the attorneys assisting in the case, said, "We are disappointed by this recommendation, but not deterred." Rooney, a former Marine Captain who served in Fallujah during the bloody battles there, recalled, "I always told Marines in Iraq that in the final analysis it is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. If we are forced to go to a general court-martial, Lt. Col. Chessani will be judged by a true jury of his peers -- many will be combat veterans themselves. We are very comfortable with that scenario." The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life through litigation, education, and related activities. The maximum punishment at a general court-martial that Chessani could face is dismissal, loss of retirement, and imprisonment of up to three years. As NewsMax has reported, the battalion intelligence officer who was present during the Haditha engagement had briefed Lt. Col. Chessani and other higher officers on all the details of the incident on November 19, 2005 -- that very night.
The briefing, based on evidence such as photos taken by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), radio transmissions from troops on the scene, and reports from Marines taking part in the operation provided a complete narrative of the day's events and eliminated any need for further investigation. As NewsMax has revealed, before going back to Iraq for another tour of duty, that intelligence officer, Capt. Jeff Dinsmore, gave eight hours of video-taped testimony, which exonerated all those charged, including Lt. Col. Chessani. Originally that testimony was classified, but has been made available to Lt. Gen. Mattis who will review it as he decides on Chessani's fate. © 2007 NewsMax. All Rights Reserved. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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