US marines to cite war chaos as Haditha defence

LOS ANGELES - US Marines accused of killing 24 unarmed Iraqis in Haditha will cite chaotic battle conditions as their defence if charged with murder, said a source close to one of the soldiers under investigation.

The source, who declined to be identified because military prosecutors have yet to press charges, said some of the 24 dead could have been insurgents. Those killed in the western Iraqi town last November 19 included men, women and children.

Witnesses had said Marines opened fire on Iraqi civilians to retaliate for a roadside bomb, but the source told Reuters that what happened was part of a bigger picture in which soldiers were fighting insurgents for several hours.

"There wasn't just this skirmish," the source said.

"There seemed to be a lot of combat that occurred for hours. Some insurgents threw hand grenades at Marines. In the immediate area there were insurgents engaging Marines.

"There were aircraft involved. We dropped a 500-pound bomb on a building where some alleged insurgents were."

The remarks offered a first glimpse into a defence for the Marines under investigation by the US military into accusations they massacred the civilians in Haditha and then covered up what would amount to war crimes.

Both the source and Captain James Kimber, who was commander of a company several miles away that day, said news coverage had not fairly represented fighting in the area.

Captain Kimber said: "All three cities got attacked that day."

"There were multiple firefights going on in Haditha. Marines got wounded by grenade fragments. This was not just one (bomb) going off."

He added dismissed any notion of a massacre, saying that as a company commander in the next city he would have known.

"There were no atmospherics to indicate something like this," he said. "We heard about it if we broke the lock on somebody's door ... It would have been all over the city by the next day."

Witnesses in Iraq have said that a handful of Marines, enraged by the death of a comrade from the roadside bomb, shot innocent men, women and children to death in a raid on three nearby homes and a car.

"They are making it sound like, 'Oops, Marine rampage, cover-up, end of story'," the source said.

"Life's not that black and white ... Nobody has ever brought up the possibility of this being an accident or collateral damage or part of the horrors of war."

US lawmakers have demanded the Bush administration swiftly establish what happened in Haditha, insisting that only rapid action could salvage the image of the military and US international relations.

- REUTERS