Combat· Iraq War (Op IRAQI FREEDOM)
Battle of Haditha
Haditha was a town on the Euphrates in western Anbar where, in late 2005, an incident occurred that became one of the most scrutinized and controversial episodes of the Marine Corps' war in Iraq.
After a roadside bomb killed a Marine, a number of Iraqi civilians died in the events that followed, prompting investigations, prosecutions, and intense public examination of the conduct of Marines under the strain of counterinsurgency warfare. The case drew national attention and became a focus of debate over the pressures, rules of engagement, and moral hazards facing troops fighting an elusive enemy among a civilian population. The legal proceedings that followed extended over years and ended without the outcomes many had expected. Haditha is remembered less as a battle than as a deeply contested incident, one that raised hard and lasting questions about accountability and the conduct of war in the difficult environment of Anbar Province.
Record no. 36