Not Far From The Tree

Apparently the apples became bad partly because they were poisoned:

Military prosecutors and investigators probing the killing of three Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops in May believe the unit’s commanders created an atmosphere of excessive violence by encouraging “kill counts” and possibly issuing an illegal order to shoot Iraqi men.

At a military hearing Wednesday on the killing of the detainees near Samarra, witnesses painted a picture of a brigade that operated under loose rules allowing wanton killing and tolerating violent, anti-Arab racism.

Some military officials believe that the shooting of the three detainees and the killing of 24 civilians in November in Haditha reveal failures in the military chain of command, in one case to establish proper rules of engagement and in the other to vigorously investigate incidents after the fact.

“The bigger thing here is the failure of the chain of command,” said a Defense Department official familiar with the investigations.

As allegations of U.S. troop misconduct in Iraq have mounted, the military’s defenders have maintained that most were isolated incidents and that officers and investigators working within the military justice system had succeeded in ferreting out the truth.

The military’s primary report on the Haditha incident, completed this year, does not explicitly accuse the Marine command in Iraq of a cover-up. But the investigation cites several instances of information being ignored or evidence being destroyed, including log entries from the day the killings took place. The Defense official, who has reviewed the report, spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been released.

Initial findings of investigators looking into the Samarra incident may be even more troubling. Military officials are investigating Army Col. Michael Steele, the commander of the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade, whose soldiers are accused of killing the three Iraqi detainees.