Stars & Stripes LTTE demanding accountability for Haditha

Accountability not optional

As President Bush recently noted, the revelation in the spring of 2004 of soldierly misconduct at Abu Ghraib had very serious and damaging effects upon the United States. For many of us who were in Iraq at the time of its public release, it poisoned our dedication to the effort far greater than the impact of what remains the deadliest month, April 2004, in our occupation.

That we could field soldiers with a moral value that enabled them to degrade human dignity with such callous indifference appeared to me nothing less than negligence and incompetence in the command structure. Without some definitive action by senior military and civilian authorities in Iraq, Qatar and Washington, I believed this activity could foster revulsion among our friends, encouragement to our enemies and other misconduct within our deployed forces. But courts-martial of only direct participants in atrocities would neither restore the legitimacy of the cause nor the integrity of the command authority. As we learned from our Vietnam experience, this limited accountability made our Army officer corps appear no better than cowering thugs.

Abu Ghraib atonement demanded that general officers in the chain of command sacrifice their careers and resign for their soldiers’ misconduct. Such action would have grabbed notice to the world that we held value to principles of conduct. To the military command, it would have extracted the accountability we attach to their lethal responsibilities.

So now we have another potential and far greater disgrace from misconduct. This time it is our Marines in Haditha who may have wantonly murdered more than 20 Iraqis, including infants. Other possible atrocities may shortly be revealed. Will the Marine general officers likewise cower?

During the spring of 2004, in the Green Zone, many of my fellow advisers, former naval and Marine Corps officers, believed the culture of honor and responsibility within our former services would demand that those in such a position would resign without equivocation.

Honor has called again. As before, it jealously awaits an answer. May we all have the fortitude to deal with these difficult times.

William J. Keller Jr
Fort Monmouth, N.J.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=37731