George Bush has now been moved to concede some "mistakes" in Iraq. The US has now begun to investigate a massacre that, according to all indications, was not just a "mistake", but — like torture in Abu Ghraib — a logical and predictable product of the general brutality and arrogance of the US occupation in Iraq.
In November 2005, US Marines deliberately killed as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in the town of Haditha.
"When these investigations come out, there’s going to be a firestorm," said retired Brigadier General David Brahms, formerly a top lawyer for the Marine Corps. "It will be worse than Abu Ghraib — nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib."
The Marines originally claimed that 15 civilians were killed in the crossfire of a firefight with insurgents, on 19 November 2005. US Congressman John Murtha, a former Marine, says that there was neither a bomb nor a firefight, and 24 civilians were killed in cold blood..
The question is, will the investigation go further than the Abu Ghraib one, which just punished a few low-ranking soldiers?
