Posted by
Catmman on Thursday, September 06, 2007 7:44:31 PM
Was video of action of the Haditha attacks doctored to bolster the
prosecutions case against the Marines?
From Newsmax:
A video taped from a Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle – purported to show the action that took place in Haditha when 24 Iraqi civilians and insurgents were killed – was heavily edited by government investigators, a NewsMax investigation reveals.
The reason, according to an inside source: to avoid showing anything that exonerates the Marines who were accused of murdering the victims.
Four Marines originally faced murder charges stemming from the Haditha incident. Charges against three of them have since been dropped, but Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich is still facing a court martial.
NewsMax can reveal that the video – which was broadcast by CNN – was a small, carefully edited part of what the Scan Eagle transmitted during its daylong surveillance flight over the battle scene on Nov. 19, 2005. And shockingly, the approximately one hour of edited footage was the only Scan Eagle footage provided to the Marines’ defense teams by the prosecution.
According to CNN, “The video appears to show that, throughout that day, Marines engaged in fierce firefights and called in air strikes to level buildings - often with no definitive idea of who was inside."
More:
Had the entire video been shown it would have revealed that the Marines knew exactly “who was inside” - insurgents were clearly shown entering the target buildings before the structures were bombed. If CNN had been able “to review the whole video, they would see that we did indeed have a definitive idea of who was inside,’" an intelligence officer told NewsMax.
The insurgents’ car parked outside the buildings “was packed to the gills with weapons, and we had just witnessed them complete an ambush on our ambulance,” the officer said. “We saw them enter the house, clapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves.”
The Marine intelligence officer who monitored the Scan Eagle’s video transmissions throughout the day told NewsMax that there was continuous video feed from the Scan Eagle for 8 to 10 hours. Yet barely an hour of it was provided to the Marines' defense teams by the prosecution or the Naval Criminal Investigation Service.
“This 8 to 10 hours, viewed in its entirety, shows men in black, with weapons, fleeing the neighborhood of houses 1, 2, 3 and 4 [the area where the civilians and eight of the insurgents were killed]. It follows their route as they meet up with other insurgents throughout the city. It clearly demonstrates the magnitude of the insurgents’ organization, skill, and timing in attacking Marines.”
The video, he recalled, “shows them parking, exiting the vehicle, and entering the housing complex. It shows Marines assaulting the building, insurgents fleeing out the back of the building, and Marines falling back from the assault as the insurgents defend the house.”
Finally, the intelligence officer revealed, the full, undoctored Scan Eagle video “shows an insurgent, at the end of the day, under continuous observation from the air and under continuous pursuit and fire, emerge from a family's home holding their children hostage, in order to protect himself from further air strikes.”
And this:
The deliberate editing of the video to show the defendants in the worst possible light, the Marine intelligence expert told NewsMax, “should have the defense screaming prosecutorial and NCIS misconduct.”
(H/T: Hot Air)