General Says Bosses Knew of ’05 Killings in Iraqi Town

By PAUL VON ZIELBAUER
Published: June 2, 2007
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., June 1 — The general who was in charge of the Marine division in Iraq when infantrymen in the division killed 24 civilians in Haditha in late 2005, said Friday that all his superiors, including Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, knew of the event within hours.
The commander of the Second Marine Division, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, also said in sworn testimony on Friday that he knew the civilians had been killed in their homes, but that he did not investigate because subordinates in the field, upon whom he relied to suggest such an inquiry, did not do so.
Testifying for the second time in three weeks in a military hearing here about the killings in Haditha, which included several women and children, General Huck repeated assertions from his previous testimony: that his superiors knew about the killings at the same time he learned of them.
But on Friday, under questioning from lawyers for a former battalion commander charged with failing to properly investigate and report the deaths, General Huck took pains to show that the generals above him were also well aware of the episode but, like him, did nothing to immediately look into it. >>>cont
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