General Has Doubts About How Colonel Reported Deaths

Friday, June 1st 2007, 7:33 pm

By: News On 6

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) -- A two-star general says a Marine colonel whose men are suspected of killing 24 Iraqi civilians may not have done all he could to report and investigate the killings.

Major General Richard A Huck testified in the preliminary hearing for Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, commander of the Marine battalion involved in the November 2005 deaths in Haditha.

Chessani is charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the killings and is the highest-ranking of seven Marines, including Lance Corporal Stephen B Tatum of Edmond, Oklahoma.

Defense attorney Brian Rooney says his client isn't guilty and immediately reported to the commanding officer the facts as he understood them about who had died.

The civilians were killed after a roadside bomb killed a lance corporal driving a Humvee.

In the aftermath, Marines say they encountered gunfire when they went house to house looking for insurgents.