TM: Yeah, we did. In the beginning after we saw the video and heard accounts from the military and the girls, we approached the military and said, “This is what we’ve got,” and the Marines’ first reaction was “Well, we think this is all al Qeada propaganda.” We told them that we’d like to go up and see the place for ourselves, but it was too dangerous for us to go up there alone, can [they] arrange an embed? So, they did, but the problem was that the ABC anchor [Bob Woodruff] had just been wounded the day before we were supposed to go out, and [Time managing editor] Jim Kelly, I think wisely, said that it probably wasn’t a good idea for us to go out to Haditha, and put our safety in the hands of the men that we were then going to turn around and accuse of having gone on a rampage and killed civilians.
PM: During your stint in country, how often did Time reporters go out on embeds?
TM: [Michael] Ware went out a lot. I think when I was there, I went out on three different embeds around Baghdad.
PM: How long were you in Iraq?
TM: Five weeks, but I was also there last summer, in June and July.
PM: And how would you compare last summer to your most recent trip this past winter?
TM: It was much worse this past time. When I came back in January there were entire sections of the city where we had been able to go six months before, and suddenly they were just too dangerous. Also the strains on the staff were much, much greater because we had a mix of Sunni and Shia, and all the reverberations of what was happening outside of the office were naturally affecting the people inside, too.
PM: How would you respond to the criticism coming from some on the Right [that] the press is trying to push the Haditha story because it makes the military look bad, and hurts the war effort?
TM: I just know in my case that we deliberately got all of our facts together, and then and only then did we go to the military. We gave what we had to the military and they said that they would launch an investigation into it. We held off on reporting it until we could get their side of the story. So, I don’t think we were in any great rush to accuse them of a massacre.
- 1
- 2
So now that every single Marine suspected in this frame-up of a non-existent "massacre" has been cleared, when does Tim McGirk get charged and put on trial for his willingness to trash innocent servicemen and this country? Sadly, it would do me no good to hold my breath.
Posted by Vince Edgar on Tue 17 Mar 2009 at 11:22 PM
It's a scandal that the killers got off scott-free. Makes you wonder about the wisdom of having them judged by fellow soldiers. I wonder what kind of pressure the court was under from higher-ups. The evidence was overwhelming (i.e., none of the dead had weapons, most were women, children and old people, and most were shot in the back or the head at close range). This is military justice at its worst.
Posted by dave morris on Wed 25 Mar 2009 at 02:55 AM
The evil of McGirk ALMOST rises to that of the Prophet Mohammed and his barbaric followers
Posted by Joe on Tue 16 Jun 2009 at 08:19 PM
TIM MCGIRK has shown himself to be an inaccurate reporter with little common sense. He has lost credibility.
Sorry Tim.
Posted by Dave Waterbury on Wed 9 Sep 2009 at 04:03 PM
Just read tim's account of the reasons for the actions of muslim shooter at Fort Hood. What pathetic drivel! Nothing explains shooting 50 people. Get the wahhabist hate-mongering muslims together and ship them to palestine. This is a war for control of our culture, country and future. Like Abraham Lincoln said when he suspended the writ of habeus corpus during the civil war, "What does it matter if I save habeus corpus and lose the country?"
Posted by James L. Miller on Mon 9 Nov 2009 at 05:58 PM
tim mcgirk
i hope the jihadists find you
although theyre your friends maybe one of them will will be subversive and put an end to you
Posted by joe richards on Mon 9 Nov 2009 at 07:55 PM
tim-i mean that in the nicest way
Posted by joe richards on Mon 9 Nov 2009 at 07:59 PM