US says facts on Marines 'killings' will be made public

WASHINGTON - The White House pledged today that the public would be told everything learned during a probe into reports that US Marines may have killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha last November.

The November 19 deaths have led to comparisons from US commentators of the March 16, 1968, killing of unarmed civilians by US troops in the Vietnamese village of My Lai.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the Defence Department was investigating the incident and that he had been assured that "when this comes out, all the details will be made available to the public, so we'll have a picture of what happened."

He said Bush first became aware of the 24 civilians killed at Haditha when a Time magazine reporter asked about it earlier this year, prompting national security adviser Stephen Hadley to brief Bush on it.

US military officials said last week that murder charges could eventually be brought against Marines for the killings at Haditha.

An Iraq war critic, Pennsylvania Democratic Representative John Murtha, said on Sunday the killings of Iraqi civilians at Haditha had done more damage to US aims in Iraq than the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

He said there was "no question" that the US military tried to cover up the killings.

- REUTERS