![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/karmalised.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/15haditha-articleLarge.jpg\" "\\"haditha\\"")
<\/a>Andrea Bruce for The New York Times<\/p><\/div>Transcripts of military interviews from the investigation into the Haditha massacre were found at this trailer in a junkyard in Baghdad, which specializes in selling trailers and office supplies left over from American military base closings.<\/p>\n
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT BAGHDAD \u2014 One by one, the Marines sat down, swore to tell the truth and began to give secret interviews discussing one of the most horrific episodes of America\u2019s time in Iraq: the 2005 massacre by Marines of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, whether it\u2019s a result of our action or other action, you know, discovering 20 bodies, throats slit, 20 bodies, you know, beheaded, 20 bodies here, 20 bodies there,\u201d Col. Thomas Cariker, a commander in Anbar Province at the time, told investigators as he described the chaos of Iraq. At times, he said, deaths were caused by \u201cgrenade attacks on a checkpoint and, you know, collateral with civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war, were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp.<\/p>\n The documents \u2014 many marked secret \u2014 form part of the military\u2019s internal investigation, and confirm much of what happened at Haditha, a Euphrates River town where Marines killed 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers. <\/p>\n Click here to continue reading “Junkyard Gives Up Secret Accounts of Massacre in Iraq” by Michael S. Schmidt<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Transcripts of military interviews from the investigation into the Haditha massacre were found at this trailer in a junkyard in Baghdad, which specializes in selling trailers and office supplies left over from American military base closings. By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT … Continue reading
\nPublished: December 14, 2011<\/strong> <\/p>\n