US veterans of the war in Iraq have described a culture of casual violence, revenge and prejudice against Iraqi civilians that has made the killing of innocent bystanders a common occurrence.
The US military is now involved in at least three separate investigations into its own soldiers' conduct in Iraq that may illegally have led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians. It is widely expected that more incidents will be uncovered. The most serious is the alleged massacre of 24 civilians in the Sunni town of Haditha by a unit of Marines. The victims included women and children who were shot after a roadside bomb hit a convoy and killed a US soldier.
Last week it was revealed that two more incidents have also been under investigation. The first is the death of 11 Iraqis during a US raid near Balad in March. The dead included five children.
The second inquiry involves seven US Marines and a sailor in the death of an Iraqi civilian near Baghdad in April. It is believed the man was dragged from his home and shot before an AK-47 and a shovel were placed next to his body to make it seem he was an insurgent.
Some US veterans have expressed little surprise at the latest revelations.
"I don't doubt for one moment that these things happened. They are widespread. This is the norm. These are not the exceptions," said Camilo Mejia, a US infantry veteran who served briefly in the Haditha area in 2003.
US veterans have told of a military culture that places little practical emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties in the heat of battle, although they also point out the huge problems of urban fighting against a tough enemy that often hides within the civilian Iraqi community.
"In these circumstances you would be surprised at how any normal human being can see their morals degenerate so they can do these things," said Garrett Reppenhagen, a former US sniper.
Mejia, who has served time in jail for refusing to return to Iraq for a second tour of duty, said there was widespread prejudice against Iraqis in his unit, and that Iraqis were routinely referred to as hajjes in the same way that local people during the Vietnam war were called "gooks" or "Charlie."
"We dehumanize the enemy under these circumstances," said Mejia. "They called them gooks in Vietnam, and we called them hajjes in Iraq."
Mejia described an incident in Ramadi when his unit was manning a roadblock near a mosque. When one car refused to stop, US soldiers opened fire on it. Then the US unit came under fire from elsewhere. In the resulting firefight, however, no insurgents were killed while seven Iraqi civilians stuck at the roadblock died. No weapons were found in the car that had refused to stop.
"There was no sense in it. There was no basic humanity. They were all civilians and we didn't kill any insurgents," Mejia said.
Some have tried to defend the killings by pointing to the stress that US soldiers -- many of whom are on their second or third tour of duty -- are under. But it is clear that there are other, deeper problems within the US military that point to a widespread failure of command.
At the heart of the issue is a culture of violence against Iraqi civilians that has been present in large measure since the moment US forces crossed the border into Iraq -- an inability and unwillingness to distinguish between civilians and combatants that as three years have passed has been transformed, for some, into something more deliberate.
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