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Platoon CO grilled about Hadithah response

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A military prosecutor on Tuesday hammered an infantry platoon commander who told a squad leader to “clear” houses in an Iraqi town in a search for insurgents, questioning the officer why the deaths of children, women and other civilians by Marines didn’t raise any red flags.

The lead prosecutor, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan, asked 1st Lt. William Kallop several times why he didn’t seek out more details and information about the actions of then-Sgt. Frank Wuterich and his squad after they cleared two houses in Hadithah on Nov. 19, 2005, near the site of a roadside bomb that killed one Marine and wounded two other squad members.

Sullivan, in the opening day of the first preliminary hearing at Camp Pendleton for the battalion’s lawyer, asked Kallop if he ever thought “that there was a possibility that your Marines could have violated” any laws.

“I thought the Marines had a good understanding of the rules of engagement,” Kallop, who commanded Kilo Company’s third platoon, responded during the preliminary hearing. After they provided some initial information, “I said, Roger that. I said it was good to go.”

“You didn’t push for details?” Sullivan asked. “No,” answered Kallop, dressed in green digital camouflage uniform and seated in the small second-floor courtroom. A live video and audio feed of the proceeding was aired at a nearby media center.

“You just didn’t question Sgt. Wuterich at all?” Sullivan asked.

“No, sir,” Kallop replied.

Kallop, who is testifying under a grant of immunity, spent nearly four hours on the stand. In questioning him, Marine Corps prosecutors began their attempt to show that the civilians’ deaths would have amounted to violations of the law of armed conflict, thus sounding alarms and prompting questions and investigations from higher commands.

Sullivan questioned Kallop about the amount and type of law-of-war training that he and his platoon had received by the battalion’s lawyer, Capt. Randy Stone, who was the staff judge advocate for the Camp Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines during the 2005-2006 Iraq deployment.

Stone, 34, is charged with two counts of dereliction of duty and one count of violating an order. He is one of four battalion officers charged in the case, although none is charged in the civilians’ deaths. Three enlisted Marines are facing murder and other charges in the incident, which has drawn outcries from international human rights groups after an article in Time magazine recounted the deaths.

The investigating officer, Maj. Thomas McCann, an infantry officer and staff judge advocate for 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, will hear testimony and weigh evidence before recommending to Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands I Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Corps Forces-Central Command, whether the charges against Stone should proceed to a court-martial, be dropped or handled administratively. The hearing was expected to last until week’s end and may include testimony from the senior Marine Corps commander in Iraq at the time, Maj. Gen. Richard Huck, who commanded the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 2nd Marine Division.

During Tuesday’s session, Kallop testified that Stone provided refresher classes on rules of engagement and law-of-war issues during the platoon’s rest period one or two months after the incident. He said he could not recall exactly when. At no time did the Marines discuss the civilians’ deaths from that day, and no one had questions about it, he testified.

Kallop had responded to the scene of the roadside bomb with a quick-reaction force after they heard the explosion at their base a few kilometers away. At the scene, at least one Marine told him that they were taking enemy fire.

Kallop told Wuterich, now a staff sergeant, “to clear a group of buildings” south of the bomb crater.

“At the time, I didn’t see any insurgents … I didn’t see any bad guys,” the lieutenant said when questioned by Charles Gittins, Stone’s lead defense attorney.

Kallop said he later went into one of the two houses where 17 civilians, including several women and children, were killed and others were wounded. “I just wanted to see what happened,” he said.

The severed leg of one person blocked a door that lead into a room where a family lay, dead. “I saw a little boy moving in the back corner of the room,” Kallop said. The wounded children refused to leave the room, opting to run back into the corners, he said.

The scene jarred him, but didn’t prompt him to report to superiors anything out of the ordinary.

Kallop testified that he thought, “What the crap? Where’s the bad guys? Why weren’t there any insurgents in here?” He looked at one of his corporals, who earlier had reported taking enemy fire, “and he looked shocked.”

Later, in a brief conversation of “20 to 30 seconds” with Wuterich, Kallop said that the squad leader told him that he had heard noises behind a door in the house that sounded like the bolting action of an AK-47 rifle. “From what he told me,” Kallop said, “…I thought that [their response] was within the rules of engagement because the squad leader felt he was going to kick in a door and walk into a machine gun nest.”

Kallop didn’t ask many questions of Wuterich, and the lieutenant said he didn’t think they had anything more to tell him about the deaths.

“You didn’t even have one question?” Sullivan asked.

“I had faith in my squad leader, who told me what happened and why,” Kallop replied. “The first team leader also told me the same thing.”

Neither Marine specifically told them about the civilians killed, including the children, he added, but he didn’t ask about that. “It’s not like they were trying to hide it, sir,” Kallop added.

Sullivan pressed on, asking Kallop why he didn’t get a post-incident report from Wuterich that noted the civilian deaths as is done in accordance to law-of-war training. “They had been trying to engage the enemy in the best possible way that they can,” he replied.

Kallop reported by radio “10 to 15” deaths into the Kilo Company operations center, but doesn’t recall if he specified whether they were civilians.

In questioning by the investigating officer, Kallop said that the company’s response to complaints by local residents was that while the Marines “tried to do the right thing,” “the insurgents created the problem for you.”

“That was kind of the general consensus” within the battalion, he added.

Related stories:

* Hadithah officer told Marines to clear homes

* Article 32 for Hadithah officer begins

* 2-start called to testify in Hadithah case

* Lawyer: Hadithah officer nominated for medal

* Army report faults Marine command on Hadithah

* Immunity granted to Marines in Hadithah

* All charges dropped against Hadithah Marine

* Hadithah was justified, Marine tells ‘60 Minutes’