The images were horrifying.
It was In January 2014, and TMZ had just published eight photographs, all taken in Iraq nearly a decade prior, showing battle-clad Marines setting fire to a pair of rotting human corpses. The gossip site obtained dozens more but refrained from posting them, saying "many are just too gruesome." In one such image, TMZ reported, a dog is seen eating one of the bodies.
A Defense Department spokesman told TMZ at the time "the actions that are depicted in these photos are not in any way representative of the honorable, professional service" displayed by the millions of American troops who went to war since 9/11. All signs pointed to There is no scandal behind several disturbing images of Marines burning bodies in Iraq during a 2004 battle, Marine officials said this week. The photographs, depicting troops pouring accelerant on and burning the corpses of insurgents in Fallujah, were first published early last year by the gossip and entertainment website TMZ, . At the time, the images appeared to mark be the start of a war zone scandal — one dishearteningly similar to the international meltdown that happened in 2012 when caused by a 2011 a video surfaced on YouTube showing Marines in Afghanistan scout snipers urinating on human remains bodies of Taliban corpses in Afghanistan.
But that was not the case, officials acknowledged this week. The Marines in those photographs Fallujah, officials now say, were not working to prevent disease by their actions, rather than desecrating the war dead. Rather, a spokesman says said, they were endeavoring working to prevent disease after some 200 U.S. troops fell ill from dog bites that had become infected.
The two cases demonstrate drastically also show the very different approaches Marines took to handling what were significant public-relations concerns for the Marine Corps. And those actions greatly affected how each was portrayed in the media the incidents, which affected the way they played out in the press and their aftermath.
Some of the results of the Marines' investigation into the
It resurfaced earlier were first published this week when by retired Marine officer James Weirick, a retired Marine officer, wrote about the new findings for the website Task and Purpose. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Weirick obtained an email explaining from public affairs officers discussing the incident and the war zone realities at the time in graphic detail how starving dogs who'd that fed on the human remains were attacking American and Iraqi troops. "We The dogs eating the bodies was a huge problem we were having out there," a source whose named is redacted wrote in a Jan. 2014 email to Capt. Eric Flanagan, a public affairs officer. "The dogs were actually starving and started to attack both the Iraq and U.S. forces in packs ... we were ordered to shoot all dogs on site [sic] and remove their food sources," it says said. unfortunately were the Taliban bodies." [[[ooops, fixed-HS]]]
In statements provided to Marine Corps Times, Maj. Chris Devine, a Marine spokesman, said the Marines were battling disease, with about 200 cases of illness and infection among U.S. troops at the time. The burning of the bodies was undertaken for purely sanitary purposes, he said.
No one was charged as a result of the investigation into the incident, which was completed in June 2014, said Maj. Chris Devine, a spokesman for Marine Corps headquarters. Completed in June 2014, it determined the Marines did not violate any orders or break any laws It found, he said, that no orders were violated and no, rules of engagement or international laws were broken by the Marines' actions. Lt. Gen. Robert Neller, then the commander of Marine Corps Forces Central Command and now President Obama's nominee to become for 37th commandant of the Marine Corps' next commandant, "appointed an investigation officer, concurred with the findings, and closed the investigation," Devine said.
Marine Corps Times has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the investigation's detailed findings, which have not been publicly released.
The infamous urination video became a public relations nightmare for the Marine Corps and its top leaders.
Photo Credit: Via YouTube
The urination video, by contrast, became a highly publicized nightmare for the Marine Corps. The men involved were prosecuted, and many saw their careers brought to a early end. One later died from an accidental overdose of prescription pain medication.
Weirick, then a uniformed attorney helping to oversee the disposition of those court cases, filed a complaint accusing the service's commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, of conspiring with his legal team to ensure Marines were punished for embarrassing the Marine Corps. The general was investigated as a result of those allegations. And although Amos was cleared of any wrongdoing, the ordeal would haunt him until his retirement in October 2014.
Weirick requested the investigation into the photos, he said, to ascertain how the Fallujah Marines, who he believed did no wrong, were treated by military brass. He's waiting on the release of the full investigation to form a complete opinion, he said.
"I don't think they completely got it right the second time in that the Defense Department and the Marine Corps came out condemning the Marines before there was any investigation," he said. "To date, there's never been an official retraction [of that statement] although there was a determination of no wrongdoing over a year ago."
He was concerned, he said, at the tendency he perceived within the Pentagon to "sell out the lowest-level actors" — the troops on the ground, who had to contend with the trauma and chaos of war — when an apparent scandal emerged.
Both incidents were alike in that they highlighted the shock and backlash that results when the the ghoulish realities of war are thrust into the public eye. While the video clearly showed Marines desecrating war dead and the photos left some ambiguity as to what was taking place, the public impulse to shame and condemn was a constant.
At the top echelons of the Corps, however, care was taken to apply lessons learned from one high-profile incident to the next.
When the urination video surfaced in early 2012, Amos called the Marines' behavior "wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct ... that we have demonstrated throughout our history." He made speeches at Marine Corps bases worldwide, decrying this and other missteps that he felt cast the service in a negative light.
After the TMZ photos were published, Amos stayed silent. Officials were determined to prevent what might be a burgeoning scandal from playing out as disastrously as the other one had, a Pentagon official with knowledge of the Marines' thinking at the time said.
While the images published on TMZ were more ambiguous than the urination video, which showed Marines joking and making flippant remarks while relieving themselves on the corpses, the Marine Corps' treatment of the two incidents also shows marked differences.
The video, which drew international furor when it was made public in early 2012, was immediately condemned by top Marine leadership. Gen. James Amos, the commandant at the time, issued a statement calling the behavior "wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct ... that we have demonstrated throughout our history," and emphasizing his personal involvement in putting together a team to investigate the incident.
As the urination case unfolded over the next two years, it was further complicated because of the commandant's direct involvement. The officer originally appointed to oversee the prosecution of Marines charged in connection to the incident, Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, would testify in 2013 that Amos had removed him because he refused to promised that the Marines would be "crushed."
Weirick, then a Marine attorney, filed a series of complaints alleging unlawful command influence in the handling of the cases by Amos and his top officials.
Amos was ultimately cleared of all these allegations after multiple investigations. But when the TMZ photos surfaced in 2014, Marine officials were determined not to see the alleged new war zone scandal play out the way the first one had.
To begin with, the photos created less of a media furor than the viral video had. But Amos also took care to remain hands-off with the investigation that followed, allowing MARCENT to conduct its probe into its own Marines, the official said. The Defense Department also backed away from the initial alarm it had expressed.
With less high-profile attention from military public and from top Marine leadership, the TMZ story fizzled as they had hoped never burgeoned into a second major scandal for the Marine Corps.
"The Marine Corps, based upon the hard lessons that they learned with the urination video, letting the legal process play out on its own," the official said. "You could argue that that's what they should have done the first time."
