The deaths of as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians and an ensuing cover-up threaten to do more harm to U.S. efforts in Iraq than even the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, a prominent congressman and war critic says.

"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people," Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said Sunday. "And we're set back every time something like this happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib."

Murtha compared the shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq, with the revelations that U.S. military personnel had abused and humiliated Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, a U.S.-run prison outside of Baghdad. The prison scandal severely damaged the U.S. effort to win over the Arab world by fostering a democratic government in Iraq.

A bomb rocked a military convoy in Haditha on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Murtha.

Murtha said high-level reports he received indicated that no one fired upon the Marines and there was no military action against the U.S. forces after the initial explosion. Yet the deaths were not seriously investigated until March because an early probe was stifled within days of the incident, he said.

"Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Murtha said on "This Week" on ABC. "We don't know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command."

Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman, told The Associated Press the investigation was ongoing and he would have no comment.

Page:

1

2