Did American Marines murder 23 Iraqi civilians?

US military investigators are examining allegations that Marines shot unarmed Iraqis, then claimed they were "enemy fighters", The Independent on Sunday has learned. In the same incident, eyewitnesses say, one man bled to death over a period of hours as soldiers ignored his pleas for help.

American military officials in Iraq have already admitted that 15 civilians who died in the incident in the western town of Haditha last November were killed by Marines, and not by a roadside bomb, as had previously been claimed. The only victim of the remotely triggered bomb, it is now conceded, was a 20-year-old Marine, Lance-Corporal Miguel Terrazas, from El Paso, Texas.

An inquiry has been launched by the US Navy's Criminal Investigation Service after the military was presented with evidence that the 15 civilians, including seven women and three children still in their nightclothes, had been killed in their homes in the wake of the bombing. If it is proved that they died in a rampage by the Marines, and not as a result of "collateral damage", it would rank as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by US armed forces since the invasion three years ago.

Just when you think the news from Iraq couldn't get any worse, we come across "the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians" since the occupation began.

Now I'm sure the Bushites would rather people concentrate on the positives in Iraq, rather than "aiding al Qaeda" (as Bush recently claimed reporting the truth would do) but when you start Guinness Book of Records attempts at the slaughtering of innocent civilians, it's bound to rate a mention.

Peter Daou, when questioned by MSNBC news about Bush's request that the press give a "more balanced" view of the Iraq situation, gave a great quote that he thinks might be from Walter Kronkite. "We are not in the business of covering cats that are not stuck in trees."

Amen to that, I say.

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