Murtha's undo influance

A Time web exclusive notes the following:

"... If the families are skeptical of U.S. military justice, they have even fewer expectations of their own government. Thabet, Raseef and Khaliq all say they have not received a single enquiry from the Iraqi government in Baghdad. 'In their eyes, we are nobodies,' says Raseef, bitterly.

"Curiously, no political group has sought to make capital out of the Haditha massacre. It says a great deal of the huge gap between Iraq's politicians (who tend to restrict themselves within the safe confines of Baghdad's highly protected Green Zone) and its people that not a single politician has bothered to visit Haditha, or even sent condolences to the bereaved families."

Curiously, no political group has sought to make capital out of the Haditha massacre? What about Jack Murtha? He was on Good Morning America yesterday convicting Marines without trial. He stopped short of handing down a sentence for anyone involved.

I know how these investigations go. I was responsible for the investigation into an accident that led to a Marine being seriously injured. There will be conflicting reports. Ask John Kerry. Some of the conflicts will be as a result of honest mistakes. Last week the Capitol Building was evacuated because people in good faith thought they heard shots fired. They were wrong.

Now transfer that reaction to a combat scene in Iraq. People always see things differently in these cases. It does not mean that they are liars and obstructionists. It means they recall things differently. To add to the confusion of the investigation, these people do not necessarily all line up on the side of either the defense or prosecution.

Then there are the liars and obstructionists who lie to protect a buddy. It’s seems almost impossible to sort these people out from the first group. Then there are the people who actually might have done something wrong who lie or wisely say nothing at all.

In my case, I was pretty sure what happened. I provided my report to the convening authority and made my findings, recommendations and opinions. It was my opinion that two Marines were responsible for the accident. No punishment was ever handed down. While I had the opinion that two Marines had caused the accident, based on the number of facts in dispute and lack of physical evidence, I recommended that there was no point in going forward. Short of a confession, we had nothing and neither of the principles was talking.

This is what bugs me about Murtha. He is engaged in what we called “undo influence.” In the military, the convening authority cannot tell investigators, “look we all know Jones did it. Make sure you get him.” Well Murtha has been saying, “look we all know the Marines did this. Now you’d better get them.” Because of Murtha’s grandstanding, no matter what the evidence says at Haditha, someone is going to fry.

Further, we may know without a doubt that something bad happened at Haditha, but because of obstruction, lies and mistaken accounts cannot determine culpability. I knew something bad had happened in my investigation, and I thought I knew who was responsible, but I could not find reliable testimony and/or evidence. What if that’s the same case in Haditha? Well, yes we all know something bad happened but we cannot prove who is responsible. Because Murtha will not shut up, someone is going to have to go to trial.

I’ll tell you this. Even if they get the right guys dead to rights in Haditha, the defense will have a field day shouting “undo influence” because Murtha thinks it’s more important to make the Sunday talk shows than let the investigations run their courses. God forbid that because of political grandstanding and pressure, they get the wrong guys.