Shafaq News/The US military worked for years to suppress graphic photos from the Hadithamassacre in Iraq, where Marines killed 24 civilians, including women andchildren. The images, which remained largely unseen, depict the aftermath ofone of the most significant war crimes in modern US history, according to areport from the New Yorker.
On November19, 2005, a US Marine convoy was traveling through Haditha, Iraq, when anI.E.D. explosion killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas and injured two others.In response, the Marines launched a retaliatory operation, killing 24 Iraqicivilians. Among the victims were men, women, and children, the youngest beinga three-year-old girl and the oldest a seventy-six-year-old man. Despite claimsthat they were fighting insurgents, all of the dead were civilians.
In the hoursfollowing the killings, two Marines, Lance Corporal Ryan Briones and LanceCorporal Andrew Wright, documented the scene with Briones using his Olympusdigital camera and Wright marking bodies with a red Sharpie marker. OtherMarines, including one in intelligence, also photographed the aftermath. Theseimages became critical evidence in the investigation of what would later becalled the Haditha massacre, the American magazine indicated.
Despite fourMarines being charged with murder, the charges were dropped. General JamesMattis, who later became Secretary of Defense, dismissed the charges againstone Marine, declaring him innocent. By 2012, the final case ended with a pleadeal that resulted in no prison sentences. The Iraq War had ended, and storiesof US war crimes began to fade from public attention.
Based on themagazine, the impact of war crimes is often magnified when graphic images reachthe public. However, unlike the infamous Abu Ghraib photos, the images fromHaditha remained largely hidden. General Michael Hagee, the commandant of theMarine Corps at the time, later boasted in a 2014 oral-history interview thatthe Haditha photos had never been released. "Those pictures today havestill not been seen. And so, I’m quite proud of that," Hagee said.
In 2020, ateam from the In the Dark podcast filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)request with the Navy to obtain the Haditha photos, aiming to reconstruct whathappened and why the murder charges were dropped. When the Navy did notrespond, the team sued the Navy, Marine Corps, and US Central Command. Thegovernment argued that releasing the photos would harm the surviving familymembers, a claim previously made by military prosecutors.
During theirlegal battle, the journalists traveled to Iraq and met with the victims'families, who shared their tragic stories. Khalid Salman Raseef, a lawyer wholost fifteen family members, said, "I believe this is our duty to tell thetruth." Khalid Jamal, who was fourteen when his father and uncles werekilled, expressed the need to know more about his family members' finalmoments. "Did they die like brave men? Were they scared?" hewondered.
With thesupport of the families, the journalists pursued access to the photos. Raseefand Jamal went door-to-door in Haditha, explaining the goal of the reportingand gathering signatures from surviving family members who wanted the photosreleased. In March, after four years of legal battles, the military finallyrelented and handed over the images.
The NewYorker decided to publish a selection of these photos, with the permission ofthe victims' surviving relatives, to shed light on the horrific events that themilitary chose not to fully address. The graphic images depict men, women, andyoung children, many shot at close range while in defenseless positions.
Among thevictims was five-year-old Zainab Younis Salim, who was shot in the head whilelying in bed beside her mother, sisters, and brother. After the massacre, aMarine marked her back with the number eleven using a red Sharpie. Her mother,Ayda Yassin Ahmed, was found surrounded by her dead children, all of whom wereshot and killed by US Marines.
NavalCriminal Investigative Service (N.C.I.S.) records revealed chilling details.Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum admitted to investigators that he recognized thepeople he shot as women and children before pulling the trigger. "Knowingit was a kid, I still shot him," Tatum reportedly said, though he laterdenied making the statement.
The massacrealso claimed the lives of a mother, Asmaa Salman Raseef, and her four-year-oldson, Abdullah. Asmaa was shot in the upper back, while Abdullah sustained afatal head wound. N.C.I.S. concluded that the Marine who shot Abdullah waslikely standing just six feet away.
Photos ofthe scene show the bloody aftermath. The bodies of Asmaa, Abdullah, and twoother family members lay in a corner of the living room. Military examinersdetermined that one of the men, Jaheed Abdul Hameed Hassan, had been sitting orlying against the wall when he was shot.
Despite theoverwhelming evidence of civilian casualties, including photos showing noweapons in the homes or on the bodies, the military did not pursue significantpunishment for the Marines involved. The Haditha massacre remains a darkchapter in the history of the US occupation of Iraq, with the full horror ofthe events only now coming to light through these long-hidden images.
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