Here's what all participants agree on: at around 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, a
U.S. humvee was struck by a powerful improvised explosive device (ied)
attached to a large propane canister, triggered by remote control. The
bomb killed Terrazas, who was driving, and injured two other Marines.
For U.S. troops, Haditha, set among date-palm groves along the Euphrates
River, was inhospitable territory; every day the Marines found scores of
bombs buried in the dirt roads near their base. Eman Waleed, 9, lived in
a house 150 yards from the site of the blast, which was strong enough to
shatter all the windows in her home. "We heard a big noise that woke us
all up," she recalls two months later. "Then we did what we always do
when there's an explosion: my father goes into his room with the Koran
and prays that the family will be spared any harm." Eman says the rest
of the family—her mother, grandfather, grandmother, two brothers, two
aunts and two uncles—gathered in the living room. According to military
officials familiar with the investigation, the Marines say they came
under fire from the direction of the Waleed house immediately after
being hit by the ied. A group of Marines headed toward the house. Eman
says she "heard a lot of shooting, so none of us went outside. Besides,
it was very early, and we were all wearing our nightclothes." When the
Marines entered the house, they were shouting in English. "First, they
went into my father's room, where he was reading the Koran," she claims,
"and we heard shots." According to Eman, the Marines then entered the
living room. "I couldn't see their faces very well—only their guns
sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in
the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny." She claims
the troops started firing toward the corner of the room where she and
her younger brother Abdul Rahman, 8, were hiding; the other adults
shielded the children from the bullets but died in the process. Eman
says her leg was hit by a piece of metal and Abdul Rahman was shot near
his shoulder. "We were lying there, bleeding, and it hurt so much.
Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I
was crying, shouting 'Why did you do this to our family?' And one Iraqi
soldier tells me, 'We didn't do it. The Americans did.'" Time was unable
to speak with the only other survivor of the raid, Eman's younger
brother, who relatives say is traumatized by the experience. U.S.
military officials familiar with the investigation say that after
entering the house, the Marines walked into a corridor with closed doors
on either side. They thought they heard the clack-clack sound of an
AK-47 being racked and readied for fire. (Eman and relatives who were
not in the house insist that no guns were there.) Believing they were
about to be ambushed, the Marines broke down the two doors
simultaneously and fired their weapons. The officials say the military
has confirmed that seven people were killed inside the house--including
two women and a child. The Marines also reported seeing a man and a
woman run out of the house; they gave chase and shot and killed the man.
Relatives say the woman, Hiba Abdullah, escaped with her baby.
According
to military officials, the Marines say they then started taking fire
from the direction of a second house, prompting them to break down the
door of that house and throw in a grenade, blowing up a propane tank in
the kitchen. The Marines then began firing, killing eight
residents—including the owner, his wife, the owner's sister, a
2-year-old son and three young daughters.
The Marines raided a third
house, which belongs to a man named Ahmed Ayed. One of Ahmed's five
sons, Yousif, who lived in a house next door, told Time that after
hearing a prolonged burst of gunfire from his father's house, he rushed
over. Iraqi soldiers keeping watch in the garden prevented him from
going in. "They told me, 'There's nothing you can do. Don't come closer,
or the Americans will kill you too.' The Americans didn't let anybody
into the house until 6:30 the next morning." Ayed says that by then the
bodies were gone; all the dead had been zipped into U.S. body bags and
taken by Marines to a local hospital morgue. "But we could tell from the
blood tracks across the floor what happened," Ayed claims. "The
Americans gathered my four brothers and took them inside my father's
bedroom, to a closet. They killed them inside the closet."
