Inquiry Into Iraq Killings Focuses on Supervision of Soldiers

Edited on Tue Jul-04-06 11:17 PM by cal04

The military investigation of soldiers suspected of raping an Iraqi woman and killing her and her family is looking at whether poor oversight within the soldiers' unit helped give them the chance to operate on their own, American military officials said Tuesday.

Specifically, investigators are examining whether procedural lapses in how the unit handled convoys and traffic checkpoints gave the soldiers leeway to operate too independently outside their base, the officials said.

The procedures will be given a "top-down scrub," one of the officials added. This broad approach to the investigation leaves open the possibility that senior officers in the unit, the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, may be implicated later.

(snip)
In the hours before the deaths, the soldiers were stationed at a traffic control point about 600 feet from the victims' home, apparently operating with just a single vehicle, according to an American military official and a federal affidavit filed by prosecutors on Monday.

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