Cameraman Details A Marine's Role in Mosque Shooting

By James Glanz & Edward Wong

NY Times 11/22/04

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 21, 2004 - A marine who appears to shoot and kill an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in an NBC News video was not aware that the incident was being recorded, and moments later approached the cameraman with seemingly remorseful words - "I didn't know, sir, I didn't know" - according to the first public description of the events by the cameraman, Kevin Sites, since his brief and somewhat ambiguous initial report.

No weapons were visible inside the Falluja mosque where the shooting took place, on Nov. 13, and the wounded Iraqi made no sudden or threatening moves before the marine shot him, Mr. Sites writes on his Web site, kevinsites.net, in an entry posted Sunday night.

Mr. Sites, a freelance photojournalist who had been hired by NBC News, made it clear that as a veteran of covering wars around the globe, he understood the ugliness and complexity of battle. Nevertheless, he said of the incident in the mosque, "it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right."

His account also raises new questions about another group of marines who entered the mosque just before Mr. Sites and fired on the prisoners - they had been left there, already wounded, after a battle the day before. Mr. Sites was so surprised that the prisoners he had seen there the day before had been attacked again that he informed a Marine lieutenant of the fact before the final shooting - the one he captured on tape - took place.

The video obtained by Mr. Sites has received sensational play around the world, particularly in the Arab news media.
Mr. Sites calls the posting on his Web log an "Open Letter to the Devil Dogs of the 3.1," or the Third Battalion, First Marines. "Since the shooting in the mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw," he wrote, "or explain the process by which the world came to see them as well."

He begins by writing, "I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat." Despite his attempt to be fair, he said, since the Falluja video was broadcast on Nov. 15, he has been "shocked to see myself painted as some kind of antiwar activist." Mr. Sites has received abuse and death threats on some Web sites, and has shut down the discussion section of his own.

He said the marines he was embedded with arrived at the mosque on Nov. 13, and after a series of other events, he heard shooting inside. The other set of marines emerged and were asked by a lieutenant, "Did you shoot them?"

"Roger that, sir," a marine responded. But when the lieutenant asked, "Were they armed?" the marine just shrugged, Mr. Sites wrote.

Inside, Mr. Sites said he was was surprised to see the wounded men from the battle the day before, now shot again. "There don't appear to be any weapons anywhere," he wrote.

He was videotaping some of the wounded men when, in the background, a marine yelled that one of the others was "faking he's dead."

"Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of the his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi," Mr. Sites wrote. "There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging."

Then the marine fired. "There is a small spatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down," Mr. Sites wrote, in what was apparently a suggestion that the man had been alive.

"Well," another marine said, "he's dead now."

Mr. Sites wrote that he could feel "the deep pit of my stomach." The marine who fired, who had been angrily shouting, suddenly changed his tone.

"The anger that seemed present just moments before turned to fear and dread," Mr. Sites wrote.

"I can't know what was in the mind of the marine," he wrote. "He is the only one who does."

On Sunday, in an episode whose aftermath was caught on videotape, the American military said marines killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded five others in central Ramadi as a van swerved toward a checkpoint. The driver ignored directions to stop, the military said, and the marines opened fire. The military said officials were investigating the incident. Video film from Reuters showed the van riddled with bullet holes and the inside covered in blood.

The marines have the most tenuous of holds on Ramadi, about 30 miles west of Falluja. They have a few downtown posts, but insurgents roam about freely and regularly attack American troops.

An Oil Ministry spokesman said Sunday that insurgents had set ablaze an oil well in the Kirkuk oil fields, leading to a gap in production of 2,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Months ago, after a similar attack in the area, the Oil Ministry hired a foreign company to extinguish the fire and fix the damage in 45 days, at a cost of $2.5 million, said the spokesman, Assam Jihad.
The Oil Ministry was considering doing the same now, he added. Guerrillas have set six northern oil wells on fire in the past two weeks, and none of the fires have been extinguished. In the volatile northern city of Mosul, at least seven more bodies were discovered Sunday. An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, said two had been discovered in west-central Mosul and another five on the city's western fringe. He said the bodies had not been identified.

Meshaal Rahoo, the secretary for the head of the Mosul health department, said the bodies of eight Iraqi policemen had been discovered Saturday 15 miles west of Mosul.

The discoveries occurred after nine Iraqi Army soldiers had been found dead in western Mosul on Saturday with bullet wounds to their heads. Colonel Hastings said Saturday that seven of the nine had been beheaded, but retracted the statement on Sunday. Four headless bodies were found last Thursday.

In a bit of positive news, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Sunday that a cousin of the prime minister, Ghazi Allawi, had been freed by a guerrilla band called Ansar al-Jihad.

The cousin, his wife and their daughter-in-law were kidnapped on Nov. 9, a day after the official start of the Falluja offensive. The two women were released last week.

The spokesman, Taha Ali, said he had received word of the cousin's release through Ibrahim al-Janabi, a senior official in Dr. Allawi's political party.