“A U.S. Marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha,” read a U.S. military press release in November 2005. Four months later, Time magazine would report that it was U.S. Marines—not a roadside bomb—who were responsible for the deaths of unarmed Iraqi civilians. Soon after, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) would claim the Marines killed the Iraqis “in cold blood,” igniting a media firestorm which labeled Haditha a “massacre” and one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq war. But what really happened that day reveals a far more complex story that gets to the heart of the war troops are fighting.
Through interviews with the highest levels of the U.S. military, personal accounts from Marines involved, documents obtained by FRONTLINE, never-before-seen unmanned drone footage of the actual day’s events, and an exclusive television interview with an intelligence officer who watched the day unfold, FRONTLINE investigates what occurred in Haditha.
In Rules of Engagement, airing Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE examines how the rules of war are interpreted in theory and in battle and what that says about the war in Iraq.
Its important to note while watching this show that not one of the marine's currently incarcerated while the investigation continues has been charged with murder and charges have been dropped against all but two of the young Marine's.
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