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Author: Fallujah investigation is flawed

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — The author of a book about the battle of Fallujah is decrying the military’s investigation into the actions of an infantry squad that fought during key battles in the insurgent-held city in November 2004.

Nathaniel R. Helms, in an article he wrote and posted July 1 at the War Chronicle online blog, wrote that several members of a squad with the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, shot and killed eight military-aged, unarmed men they had captured during fighting around Nov. 10 or Nov. 11, 2004.

Helms wrote that Marines fighting in the city often encountered insurgent fighters who had shed their weapons only to later take up arms at other sites with stashed weapon caches. This allowed the insurgents to flee a site when chased, since the Marines were not allowed to shoot unarmed men, Helms wrote.

The incident under investigation occurred just days before the military loosened its rules of engagement that permitted similar shootings of suspected fighters, he wrote, which he surmised would not have led to a criminal probe of the alleged shootings.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service “is conducting an investigation into credible allegations of wrongdoing made against U.S. Marines concerning actions said to have taken place in Fallujah, Iraq, in the fall of 2004,” the agency said in a statement. The investigation “will be presented to the appropriate authority who will decide whether further action is warranted.”

NCIS spokesman Ed Buice said Thursday that the agency began a criminal probe “a few months ago. We’re investigating allegations of wrongdoing.” He declined to provide any details.

Helms, an Army and Vietnam veteran, wrote on the blog that the NCIS case came to light after former Cpl. Ryan Weemer, a member of Kilo Company’s 3rd Platoon, admitted during a polygraph examination last year for a job with the U.S. Secret Service that he was involved in a “wrongful death.”

According to Helms, Weemer told NCIS agents that his squad had detained eight unarmed men who they believed were insurgent fighters. “They were of military age, dressed in so-called ‘track suits’ favored by the insurgents at Fallujah, and running from a firefight,” Weemer told investigators, according to Helms. “The Iraqi men were placed under guard by squad members while the fight raged around them. After a brief time the squad was ordered to move out. The Marine in charge radioed headquarters for instructions about what to do with the suspected insurgents. The laconic response — ‘They’re still alive?’ — came back on the radio.”

“The leader took it to mean kill the Iraqis, Weemer said. Moments later the squad was ordered to move on,” Helms wrote. “Guns were aimed, triggers were pulled, and the Iraqis died.”

The squad, he wrote, left the bodies at the site, which he said was located near a suspected torture house used by al-Qaida members.

Helms recently published the book “My Men Are My Heroes,” which he wrote with Navy Cross recipient Sgt. Maj. Brad Kasal, who was Weapons Company’s first sergeant at the time of the Fallujah battles in 2004. Kasal was seriously wounded in fighting Nov. 13, 2004. A photograph of a bloodied Kasal still holding onto his pistol while he was being carried out of a house — the scene of an intense close-quarters fight — was widely distributed and published.

Weemer was wounded during fighting in the house, dubbed the “House of Hell,” that morning.

The shooting incident two days earlier is not included in Helms’ book, which on Thursday was ranked 1,100 at the online bookseller, Amazon.com.