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Collateral Damage or Civilian Massacre in Haditha?
Last November, U.S. Marines killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes. Was it self-defense, an accident or cold-blooded
revenge? A Time exclusive
By TIM MCGIRK / BAGHDAD
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The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the
daily reports of violence in Iraq. On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines
from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed
Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond
in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy
with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. The
Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like "T.J.,
you were a great friend. I'm going to miss seeing you around" on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And
the war moved on.
But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military
initially reported. According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who
died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in
the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children.
Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing
of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began.
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