Editorial: Massacre all too predictable

The news from Iraq lost its fascination long ago. From the moment the United States embarked on its ill-judged mission of "regime change", events have had a terrible predictability. And that includes the atrocity that US Marines appear to have committed at a town called Haditha.

Americans have heard the Haditha story before. It sounds like a sequel to the Vietnam version, My Lai. Somewhere in a protracted and no longer popular war, against an enemy hiding within a population that resents the US presence, a unit cracks. Last November at Haditha, in western Iraq, a Marine convoy was hit by a roadside bomb and one of their number was killed. What happened next has yet to be confirmed by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service but everything points to a berserk retaliation in which four men were killed in the street, five in a taxi nearby and a further 15 people, some of them women and children, were shot in their homes.

The Marines who brought the bodies of their companion and the 24 Iraqis to the Haditha hospital reported that all had been killed in a battle with insurgents. But a video taken by a student journalist and passed to a human rights group aroused the interest of Time magazine. Time went to the scene and found no sign of a firefight outside the homes of those killed. But the walls within were bullet-riddled and blood-stained.

An official investigation found only that the Marines were firing rifles that morning. One who was wounded by the bomb said his companions became "blinded by hate ... they lost control". Another took photographs on his mobile phone, which show many victims appear to have been shot at close range in the head and chest. The criminal investigation is said to be looking at charging four soldiers with murder and eight others with a failure to intervene. President George W. Bush admits to being "troubled" by the incident and promises that "if laws were broken there will be punishment".

So America seems certain to face another agonising debate about who bears the greater guilt, soldiers who lose self-control or those who send them to risk their lives in a cause that most Americans now believe to be doomed to failure.

Even the President regrets his dismissive attitude to the Iraqi resistance following his invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein. He must have known of the sectarian tensions that were kept in check by Saddam's heavy hand, and the near certainty that an American takeover would unleash civil war.

The Haditha incident needs to be seen in a context of continuing civil carnage. Almost daily the news from Iraq contains casual violence and mass killings. Just this week 11 college students were dragged from a bus on the way to examinations and shot for a reason that reporters have no time to investigate before the next atrocity occurs. All around the occupying forces, civilians are being killed by random bombs and internecine violence.

It is unlikely that Haditha is the only lapse of discipline in the occupying forces. The US military is investigating two other incidents. One is the death of 11 Iraqis, five of them children, in March. The other concerns the actions of seven Marines and a sailor when an Iraqi civilian was dragged from his home near Baghdad and shot in April. These may not be on the scale of Haditha but it takes only one to discredit a country's effort.

The suspected soldiers should be prosecuted for the sake of maintaining the military code of behaviour. And if found guilty, they should receive an exemplary penalty. But the President and his advisers will also face a jury of sorts at the congressional elections in November. Haditha may haunt everyone involved for the rest of their days.