Was Haditha Engineered By Al Qaeda? When Did Murtha Know About This?

The blogoshphere is abuzz with this (pdf) Marine Corps intelligence summary that says the “Haditha” incident, was an intentional propaganda ploy planned and paid for by Al Qaeda. From The War Chronicle:

The report – apparently overlooked by a Washington press corps awash in leaked Bargewell documents and secret Naval Criminal Investigative Service reports – shows that Marine Corps intelligence operatives were advised of the scheme to demonize the Marines by an informant named Muhannad Hassan Hamadi. The informant was snared by 3/1 Marines on December 11 2005 and decided to cooperate.
The attack was carried out by multiple cells of local Wahabi extremists and well-paid local gunmen from Al Asa’ib al-Iraq [the Clans of the People of Iraq] that were led by Al Qaeda foreign fighters, the summary claims. Their case was bolstered by Marine signal intercepts revealing that the al Qaeda fighters planned to videotape the attacks and exploit the resulting carnage for propaganda purposes…
During the November Haditha battle, the insurgents secreted themselves among local civilians to guarantee pursuing Marines would catch innocent civilians in the ensuing crossfire. On January 6, 2006 six insurgents who tried to do the same thing at another location in Haditha were turned in to Coalition authorities before they could mount a similar assault, the report says…
The captured insurgents revealed the attack was planned in Albu Hyatt, a nearby town where numerous Marines have been killed and wounded since the beginning of the war. The two main elements of the attack were the IED-initiated ambush on Route Chestnut and two IED ambushes planned along the so-called River Road that parallels the Euphrates River about 1.5 kilometers north of the Chestnut location.
The prisoners claimed the multi-pronged assault on the Marines was intended to garner local support by discrediting the Marines among the civilian population. If the coordinated attack had gone off as planned all three IED ambushes would have been sprung on the patrolling Marines almost simultaneously, the prisoners said. The insurgents plan depended on the Marines aggressively responding to the assaults to create as much carnage as possible.

Hot Air:

To me, one of the more interesting and important questions about this report is whether Murtha knew about it or not when he was prominently accusing the Haditha Marines of murder “in cold blood.” This document is one among many that are related in some way to the case, but it cuts against Murtha’s entire body of statements on Haditha. It suggests, and with some credibility, that Haditha was an enemy op that went well if not according to plan. If Murtha knew of this report, but accused the Marines of murder “in cold blood” anyway, then he had to have been aware of the possibility that he was assisting an enemy op against our troops. If he didn’t know of this report, then his informants inside the Corps were not telling him the whole story. He still should not have been out front accusing the Marines of murder, but he may have been misled by his source or sources. Which raises the question, who were his sources and why would they plant an incomplete accounting of the case with Rep. Murtha?

Michelle Malkin:

Helms’ reporting is a damning indictment of the American media as propaganda tools and fools.
Read the whole thing.
Make sure to fax a copy to John Murtha:
814-539-6229 — District
202-225-5709 — Washington
And, of course, don’t look for the NYTimes to put this on the front page.
They are, as Jim Hoft so brilliantly put it this weekend, still grieving the loss of their “defining atrocity.”

Pirates Cove:

Harry Reid has said all is lost, and John Murtha has accused our troops of being cold blooded murderers, so it is time to take it down a notch, get in the wrong frame of mind for the work week, be prepared to do your least and worst, or at least your bare minimum. Is there anyone more disloyal to the Marines then John Murtha, who is, as the MSM likes to point out all the time, a former Marine? Of course, let us not forget that he said “One Marine was killed and the Marines just said we’re going to take care – we don’t know who the enemy is, the pressure was too much on them, so they went into houses and they actually killed civilians.” Yet, the Marines involved have continued to be exhonerated, and now we find out

Tons more reaction at memeorandum

Bookmark to: