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Meltdown in Haditha: The Killing of 24 Iraqi Civilians by US Marines and the Failure of Military Justice By Kenneth F. Englade Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015 276 pages $35.00
In November 2005, after an improvised explosive device killed one of their squad members, a number of United States Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. Compounding the tragedy, the chain of command failed to report or investigate the deaths properly. Investigations started months after the incident led to courts-martial charges ranging from murder to dereliction of duty for the eight Marines involved in the killings and aftermath. In early 2012, after years of legal proceedings, all the Marine Corps had to show for its immense prosecutorial efforts was one conviction for one Marine who pled guilty to one specification of negligent dereliction of duty after initially being charged with 18 specifications of unpremeditated murder. How this "failure of military justice" occurred is the author's primary focus in Meltdown in Haditha.
Meltdown is an indictment of the Marine Corps, those involved in the killings, the cover-up, and lengthy legal proceedings, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). There was a time after the killings when the word "Haditha" equated to negative connotations for the Marine Corps. If that time has passed, Kenneth Englade revives that negative image with his all-out assault on the Corps. His thesis is clear: the Corps botched the investigations, mishandled the prosecutions, and engaged in a systematic suppression and obfuscation of information from the public. The author also makes the following conclusory statement, and serious accusation, up front: Meltdown does not determine why the Corps acted as it did, it tells "how the Corps achieved...