NBC: Marines accused of cover-up in killing

WASHINGTON - As many as seven Marines are accused of dragging an innocent Iraqi man from his home in April, killing him in cold blood and then trying to cover up the crime, NBC News has learned.

Further, military officials tell NBC that at least one of the Marines has reportedly confessed in the killing, saying they find the allegations especially disturbing because the case appears to have been a premeditated killing and not carried out in the heat of combat.

The revelations come on the heels of a visit to Iraq by the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps to address concerns that Marines are becoming indifferent to killing and death.

The alleged incident occurred April 26 in the town of Hamandiyah. The Marines are accused of dragging the innocent man from his home, shooting him to death, then planting an AK-47 rifle and a shovel next to his body, apparently to make it appear the man had been burying an IED, one of the roadside bombs that have been so deadly to U.S. forces in Iraq.

As many as 19 Marines have been returned to Camp Pendleton in California pending investigations, officials tell NBC's Jim Miklaszewski. The Hamandiyah allegations mean the U.S. military is now investigating two separate incidents in which Marines are accused of killing innocent, unarmed Iraqi civilians.

Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Marine Corps commandant, reportedly told members of Congress that Marines had killed as many as 24 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, last November in Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, and not the 15 first reported.

Concerned by the assertions of cold-blooded killing by some in his service, Hagee on Thursday issued a strong message to the entire corps to have the “moral courage to do the right thing in the face of danger or pressure from other Marines.”

Fear of indifference to loss of life
Hagee said Thursday that he feared, based on the recent cases, that some Marines could become “indifferent to the loss of a human life.” His office announced that he was enroute to Iraq to reinforce the Corps’ standards of behavior in combat.

“We do not employ force just for the sake of employing force. We use lethal force only when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful,” Gen. Michael W. Hagee wrote in a statement issued by his office.

His statement and the announcement of his trip to Iraq came just hours after the Marine command in Iraq disclosed a criminal investigation into the Hamandiyah allegations. Iraqis made the charge during a meeting with Marine officers on May 1.

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