Conflicting Haditha Stories

This evening, CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie MacIntyre reported that CNN had been granted private access to copies via an anonymous source of some 30 photographs taken immediately after the Haditha killings by 'another group of Marines' involved in the clean up of the bodies. The photos are part of the military's ongoing investigation.

Pentagon sources say the 30 images of men, women and children are some of the strongest evidence that, in some cases, the victims were shot inside their homes and at close range -- not killed by shrapnel from a roadside bomb or by stray bullets from a distant firefight, as Marines had claimed.

Among the images:

A woman and child leaning against the wall, heads slumped forward.

Another woman and child shot in bed.

A man sprawled face down with his legs behind him.

An elderly woman slumped over, her neck possibly snapped by the force of gunfire.

All of the victims were wearing casual attire. Some had been shot in the head. Some were face down, others face up.

The pictures appear to show the locations of the bodies in the houses before a Marine unit loaded them into a truck and brought them to a morgue.

Pentagon officials said there are no plans to release the gruesome images, even after the criminal investigation is complete.

Meanwhile, Reuters is running a story speculating on what the defense tactics will be if Marines are charged in this case: 'chaotic battle conditions' are cited.

The source, who declined to be identified because military prosecutors have yet to press charges, said some of the 24 dead could have been insurgents. Those killed in the western Iraqi town last November 19 included men, women and children.

Witnesses say Marines opened fire on Iraqi civilians to retaliate for a roadside bombing, but the source told Reuters on Tuesday that the incident was part of a bigger picture in which soldiers were fighting insurgents for several hours.

Besides relying on an anonymous source, Capt. James Kimber of the same marine company, and whose lawyer is failed Democratic Ohio candidate and Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, who admits he was nowhere near the scene also offered his defense of the marines involved. Kimber and Hackett have been making the media rounds this week which seems quite odd, considering Kimber wasn't even there.

Kimber dismissed any notion of a massacre, saying that as a company commander in the next city he would have known.

"There were no atmospherics to indicate something like this," he said. "We heard about it if we broke the lock on somebody's door ... It would have been all over the city by the next day."

Kimber said the investigation should study ballistics evidence to determine whether the bullets used to kill the civilians belonged to Marines or insurgents.

Would Kimber have known? Why would the military have first claimed that the dead Iraqis were killed by a bomb? If insurgents had fired on the Iraqis, wouldn't that have been reported to commanders and the public instead of the fake coverup that was offered?

This investigation is far from over and although Kimber offers some notable questions, they in no way provide any proof that contradicts what has been reported to this point.