From the Camraman: Open letter to Marines

[Chanman]

War correspondent Kevin Sites, in his own words about his Falluja shooting video

Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3/1

Kevin Sites: 11/21/04

To Devil Dogs of the 3/1:

Since the shooting in the Mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw or explain the process by which the world came to see it as well. As you know, I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat. I've spent most of the last five years covering global conflict. But I have never in my career been a 'gotcha' reporter -- hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so I can catch them at it.

This week I've even been shocked to see myself painted as some kind of anti-war activist. Anyone who has seen my reporting on television or has read the dispatches on this website is fully aware of the lengths I've gone to play it straight down the middle -- not to become a tool of propaganda for the left or the right.

But I find myself a lightning rod for controversy in reporting what I saw occur in front of me, camera rolling.

It's time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw -- without imposing on that Marine -- guilt or innocence or anything in between. I want you to read my account and make up your own minds about whether you think what I did was right or wrong. All the other armchair analysts don't mean a damn to me.

Here it goes.

It's Saturday morning and we're still at our strong point from the night before, a clearing between a set of buildings on the southern edge of the city. The advance has been swift, but pockets of resistance still exist. In fact, we're taking sniper fire from both the front and the rear.

Weapons Company uses its 81's (mortars) where they spot muzzle flashes. The tanks do some blasting of their own. By mid-morning, we're told we're moving north again. We'll be back clearing some of the area we passed yesterday. There are also reports that the mosque, where ten insurgents were killed and five wounded on Friday may have been re-occupied overnight.

I decide to leave you guys and pick up with one of the infantry squads as they move house-to-house back toward the mosque. (For their own privacy and protection I will not name or identify in any way, any of those I was traveling with during this incident.)

Many of the structures are empty of people -- but full of weapons. Outside one residence, a member of the squad lobs a frag grenade over the wall. Everyone piles in, including me.

While the Marines go into the house, I follow the flames caused by the grenade into the courtyard. When the smoke clears, I can see through my viewfinder that the fire is burning beside a large pile of anti-aircraft rounds.


I yell to the lieutenant that we need to move. Almost immediately after clearing out of the house, small explosions begin as the rounds cook off in the fire.

At that point, we hear the tanks firing their 240-machine guns into the mosque. There's radio chatter that insurgents inside could be shooting back. The tanks cease-fire and we file through a breach in the outer wall.

We hear gunshots from what seems to be coming from inside the mosque. A Marine from my squad yells, "Are there Marines in here?"

When we arrive at the front entrance, we see that another squad has already entered before us.

The lieutenant asks them, "Are there people inside?"

One of the Marines raises his hand signaling five.

"Did you shoot them," the lieutenant asks?

"Roger that, sir, " the same Marine responds.

"Were they armed?" The Marine just shrugs and we all move inside.

Immediately after going in, I see the same black plastic body bags spread around the mosque. The dead from the day before. But more surprising, I see the same five men that were wounded from Friday as well. It appears that one of them is now dead and three are bleeding to death from new gunshot wounds. The fifth is partially covered by a blanket and is in the same place and condition he was in on Friday, near a column. He has not been shot again. I look closely at both the dead and the wounded. There don't appear to be any weapons anywhere.

"These were the same wounded from yesterday," I say to the lieutenant. He takes a look around and goes outside the mosque with his radio operator to call in the situation to Battalion Forward HQ.

 

[Chanman]

I see an old man in a red kaffiyeh lying against the back wall. Another is face down next to him, his hand on the old man's lap -- as if he were trying to take cover. I squat beside them, inches away and begin to videotape them. Then I notice that the blood coming from the old man's nose is bubbling. A sign he is still breathing. So is the man next to him.

While I continue to tape, a Marine walks up to the other two bodies about fifteen feet away, but also lying against the same back wall.

Then I hear him say this about one of the men:

"He's f*cking faking he's dead -- he's faking he's f*cking dead."

Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.

However, the Marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while another Marine searches for weapons.

Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down.

"Well he's dead now," says another Marine in the background.

I am still rolling. I feel the deep pit of my stomach. The Marine then abruptly turns away and strides away, right past the fifth wounded insurgent lying next to a column. He is very much alive and peering from his blanket. He is moving, even trying to talk. But for some reason, it seems he did not pose the same apparent "danger" as the other man -- though he may have been more capable of hiding a weapon or explosive beneath his blanket.

But then two other marines in the room raise their weapons as the man tries to talk.

For a moment, I'm paralyzed still taping with the old man in the foreground. I get up after a beat and tell the Marines again, what I had told the lieutenant -- that this man -- all of these wounded men -- were the same ones from yesterday. That they had been disarmed treated and left here.

At that point the Marine who fired the shot became aware that I was in the room. He came up to me and said, "I didn't know sir-I didn't know." The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread.

The wounded man then tries again to talk to me in Arabic.

He says, "Yesterday I was shot... please... yesterday I was shot over there -- and talked to all of you on camera -- I am one of the guys from this whole group. I gave you information. Do you speak Arabic? I want to give you information." (This man has since reportedly been located by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service which is handling the case.)

In the aftermath, the first question that came to mind was why had these wounded men been left in the mosque?

It was answered by staff judge advocate Lieutenant Colonel Bob Miller -- who interviewed the Marines involved following the incident. After being treated for their wounds on Friday by Navy Corpsman (I personally saw their bandages) the insurgents were going to be transported to the rear when time and circumstances allowed.

The area, however, was still hot. And there were American casualties to be moved first.

Also, the squad that entered the mosque on Saturday was different than the one that had led the attack on Friday.

It's reasonable to presume they may not have known that these insurgents had already been engaged and subdued a day earlier.
Yet when this new squad engaged the wounded insurgents on Saturday, perhaps really believing they had been fighting or somehow posed a threat -- those Marines inside knew from their training to check the insurgents for weapons and explosives after disabling them, instead of leaving them where they were and waiting outside the mosque for the squad I was following to arrive.

During the course of these events, there was plenty of mitigating circumstances like the ones just mentioned and which I reported in my story. The Marine who fired the shot had reportedly been shot in the face himself the day before.

I'm also well aware from many years as a war reporter that there have been times, especially in this conflict, when dead and wounded insurgents have been booby-trapped, even supposedly including an incident that happened just a block away from the mosque in which one Marine was killed and five others wounded. Again, a detail that was clearly stated in my television report.

No one, especially someone like me who has lived in a war zone with you, would deny that a solider or Marine could legitimately err on the side of caution under those circumstances. War is about killing your enemy before he kills you.

 

[Chanman]

In the particular circumstance I was reporting, it bothered me that the Marine didn't seem to consider the other insurgents a threat -- the one very obviously moving under the blanket, or even the two next to me that were still breathing.

I can't know what was in the mind of that Marine. He is the only one who does.

But observing all of this as an experienced war reporter who always bore in mind the dark perils of this conflict, even knowing the possibilities of mitigating circumstances -- it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right. According to Lt. Col Bob Miller, the rules of engagement in Falluja required soldiers or Marines to determine hostile intent before using deadly force. I was not watching from a hundred feet away. I was in the same room. Aside from breathing, I did not observe any movement at all.

Making sure you know the basis for my choices after the incident is as important to me as knowing how the incident went down. I did not in any way feel like I had captured some kind of "prize" video. In fact, I was heartsick. Immediately after the mosque incident, I told the unit's commanding officer what had happened. I shared the video with him, and its impact rippled all the way up the chain of command. Marine commanders immediately pledged their cooperation.

We all knew it was a complicated story, and if not handled responsibly, could have the potential to further inflame the volatile region. I offered to hold the tape until they had time to look into incident and begin an investigation -- providing me with information that would fill in some of the blanks.

For those who don't practice journalism as a profession, it may be difficult to understand why we must report stories like this at all -- especially if they seem to be aberrations, and not representative of the behavior or character of an organization as a whole.

The answer is not an easy one.

In war, as in life, there are plenty of opportunities to see the full spectrum of good and evil that people are capable of. As journalists, it is our job is to report both -- though neither may be fully representative of those people on whom we're reporting. For example, acts of selfless heroism are likely to be as unique to a group as the darker deeds. But our coverage of these unique events, combined with the larger perspective - will allow the truth of that situation, in all of its complexities, to begin to emerge. That doesn't make the decision to report events like this one any easier. It has, for me, led to an agonizing struggle -- the proverbial long, dark night of the soul.

I knew NBC would be responsible with the footage. But there were complications. We were part of a video "pool" in Falluja, and that obligated us to share all of our footage with other networks. I had no idea how our other "pool" partners might use the footage. I considered not feeding the tape to the pool -- or even, for a moment, destroying it. But that thought created the same pit in my stomach that witnessing the shooting had. It felt wrong. Hiding this wouldn't make it go away. There were other people in that room. What happened in that mosque would eventually come out. I would be faced with the fact that I had betrayed truth as well as a life supposedly spent in pursuit of it.

When NBC aired the story 48-hours later, we did so in a way that attempted to highlight every possible mitigating issue for that Marine's actions. We wanted viewers to have a very clear understanding of the circumstances surrounding the fighting on that frontline. Many of our colleagues were just as responsible. Other foreign networks made different decisions, and because of that, I have become the conflicted conduit who has brought this to the world.

 

[Chanman]

The Marines have built their proud reputation on fighting for freedoms like the one that allows me to do my job, a job that in some cases may appear to discredit them. But both the leaders and the grunts in the field like you understand that if you lower your standards, if you accept less, than less is what you'll become.

There are people in our own country that would weaken your institution and our nation ?by telling you it's okay to betray our guiding principles by not making the tough decisions, by letting difficult circumstances turns us into victims or worse?villains.

I interviewed your Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Willy Buhl, before the battle for Falluja began. He said something very powerful at the time-something that now seems prophetic. It was this:

"We're the good guys. We are Americans. We are fighting a gentleman's war here -- because we don't behead people, we don't come down to the same level of the people we're combating. That's a very difficult thing for a young 18-year-old Marine who's been trained to locate, close with and destroy the enemy with fire and close combat. That's a very difficult thing for a 42-year-old lieutenant colonel with 23 years experience in the service who was trained to do the same thing once upon a time, and who now has a thousand-plus men to lead, guide, coach, mentor -- and ensure we remain the good guys and keep the moral high ground."

I listened carefully when he said those words. I believed them.

So here, ultimately, is how it all plays out: when the Iraqi man in the mosque posed a threat, he was your enemy; when he was subdued he was your responsibility; when he was killed in front of my eyes and my camera -- the story of his death became my responsibility.

The burdens of war, as you so well know, are unforgiving for all of us.

I pray for your soon and safe return.

 

[Chanman]

And

And

Self-defense on and off the battlefield
Diana West (archive)


November 22, 2004 | Print | Send


In the space between the fog of war (confusion, peril and instant reflexes) and the edited news break (carefully scripted and produced filler between Viagra commercials), a young Marine hangs out to dry.

Maybe I should say he hangs crucified, although that particular metaphor these days isn't just politically incorrect, it's radioactive. But what I'm getting at, in this land of free speech and home of brave Marines, is my unequivocal belief that Marine X committed no "war crimes" in that fortified Fallujah mosque last week where he shot and killed a prone and wounded terrorist. He was just doing his job -- his hellishly dangerous job -- and thank God for him.

This is hardly the consensus view, at least not the one that is actually spoken out loud. And I don't mean just on Al Jazeera, where the NBC News "get" of the week -- a video sequence of the Marine in question shooting a wounded Fallujah fighter after shouting that the man was "faking" his incapacity -- has been airing at half-hour intervals as if it were the Lost Episodes of Abu Ghraib. "Enlightened" people everywhere are clucking -- but not over the heinous execution of CARE's Margaret Hassan, the mutilated bodies found on Fallujah's streets, the beheading chamber discovered by U.S. soldiers, the Taliban-like decrees threatening death for Fallujah women who don't "cover," or the bomb-making workshops seized before creating more craters of carnage. They emote over the death of a terrorist dedicated to all of the above.

Seeing may be believing, but a minute of video doesn't tell the whole story. And the whole story is not that an American soldier stormed a house of worship to shoot a pious Fallujah citizen in cold blood -- the "war crime" we are led to imagine has happened. The mosque served as a fort; the citizen was an apparently wounded, apparently dangerous combatant; and the Marine was fighting the urban war of his life.

Even so, Amnesty International is already tsk-tsk-ing that "this latest incident is just a further reminder that one cannot take it for granted that troops ... will strive to abide by the ... law," while the United Nations, naturally, has called for an investigation into alleged "abuses" by U.S. troops in Fallujah. (Anything to detract from the grostesqueries of the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal.)

Meanwhile, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., U.S. military commander in Iraq, has too quickly conceded that the shooting was a "tragic incident," while U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte makes it sound as if the Marine now under military investigation is practically guaranteed a stretch of busting rocks at Fort Leavenworth: "The important point is that the individual in question will be dealt with," he said. "But I don't think that (the incident) in any way is a reflection on the quality and caliber of absolutely fine young servicemen" blah, blah, blah.

Frankly, I think it is. But that's a good thing. In other words, I have heard nothing, nada, zilch that indicates this Marine was doing anything besides trying to preserve life and limb in his unit while fighting to wrest control of Fallujah for liberated Iraq.

"In a combat infantry soldier's training, he is always taught that his enemy is at his most dangerous when he is severely wounded," commented Charles Heyman, a senior analyst with Jane's Consultancy Group in Britain. And the jihadist enemy we find in Iraq -- comrade in both faith and arms with the terrorists of Beslan, Bali, Jerusalem, Madrid and Manhattan -- are even more dangerous wounded than others.

Some are rigged with suicide-belts to detonate in extremis. Booby-trapped corpses -- a Judeo-Christian taboo Muslim jihadists overcome, I suspect, in their perverse belief that killing infidels on Earth earns them virgins in paradise -- are a common hazard in hotspots.
Even one of our beheaded hostages in June, poor devil, was packed with explosives designed to detonate at an American soldier's touch. Who, among the global millions who have watched NBC's videotaped-shooting, realizes that a comrade of the Marine in question was killed by a booby-trapped corpse the day before? That same corpse-bomb wounded five others in the unit.
And who, among those same millions, realize that even as Marine X, NBC's global antihero, was shooting the enemy he suspected was playing possum, just a block away, another explosive-rigged corpse was killing another young Marine?

In that split second of fear and indecision, our guy made the right call. Think about it during the long, luxurious minutes of the next commercial break.



?2004 Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

 

[smurphy]

Interesting that all the O'Reillys and Savages and Reagans and Hannitys and Ingrahams and Limbaughs, etc etc etc all had their own uninformed opinions about this incident- telling the rest of us what to think about it long before we get these first hand explanations.

Pretty haunting. Thanks, Chanman.

 

[MrChristo]

Pretty chilling stuff, huh?

The Marine who fired the shot had reportedly been shot in the face himself the day before.

How does that work? (Serious question.) I mean, how are you shot in the face one day and patrolling along normally the next??
It doesn't make any sense to me. (Not that it has much to do with the story in general, I know.)

 

[djv]

Hey the whole place is sad and a mess. War alway is. What you hope is you didn't start it. And if you do start it do it right. That is open to many opinions. WW I and WW II even Korea were easy to determine why. This one were still coming up with reasons.
But once folks see friends die in many strange ways. They don't take many chances. They don't care if the enemy dies in many strange ways also. The difficulty is knowing there your enemy for sure.

 

[Chanman]

If you'd like to read more...

If you'd like to read more...

http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/003176.html

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

onother oint of interest--

"Close observers of the Fallujah video will note that the instant the Marine shoots the first covered man on the floor, the covered body directly behind him raises its arms and energetically surrenders. It?s plausible that the Marine in Fallujah shot a wounded man who did not actually pose a threat. But it is far more likely that he saved the lives of his fellow Marines, and cameraman Kevin Sites as well."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139554,00.html

 

[marine]

Pretty chilling stuff, huh?

The Marine who fired the shot had reportedly been shot in the face himself the day before.

How does that work? (Serious question.) I mean, how are you shot in the face one day and patrolling along normally the next??
It doesn't make any sense to me. (Not that it has much to do with the story in general, I know.)

He's a Marine.

Probly took a grazing shot along the cheek or something.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Have seen more than one soilder with superficial gun shot wound (flesch wound) refuse to come out of field until his unit returned to base. Unsung hero's for certain---
quite the opposite of self proclaimed hero's who come out field for abrasions-contusions(bruise) and put themselves in for no less than 3 purple hearts and get the hell out of dodge in less than 3 months.

 

[FUZZY NUTZ]

Unsung hero's for certain---quite the opposite of self proclaimed hero's who come out field for abrasions-contusions(bruise) and put themselves in for no less than 3 purple hearts and get the hell out of dodge in less than 3 months.

TOO FUNNY DTB! :142lmao: :clap:

 

[I LOVE WR]

THERES NO BETTER SENSATION THAN SHOOTING AN UNARMED MAN.

IM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN WHERE I CAN WHERE THE RED/WHITE AND BLUE.

THERES NO EXCUSE BUT IGNORANT PEOPLE WILL MAKE UP BS TO JUSTIFY IT. MURDER COLD BLOODED MURDERER.

 

[RexBudler]

THERES NO BETTER SENSATION THAN SHOOTING AN UNARMED MAN.

IM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN WHERE I CAN WHERE THE RED/WHITE AND BLUE.

THERES NO EXCUSE BUT IGNORANT PEOPLE WILL MAKE UP BS TO JUSTIFY IT. MURDER COLD BLOODED MURDERER.

:moon: :moon: .....and it's wear on the 2nd one

 

[I LOVE WR]

U ARE CORRECT REX GOOD BUDDY.

ANOTHER MURDERER WALKS THE STREETS.