In a not so shocking outcome. The leading enlisted Marine responsible for the massacre will only be charged with dereliction of duty. The most he would have been responsible for would have been manslaughter. Although he was initially charged with murder. That was soon reduced to manslaughter.
No indication any other supervisory Marines were charged in relation to the Haditha massacre. Many of the Staff Sergent's enlisted who participated in the massacre assisted in the investigation for reduced charges.
Meanwhile Bradley Manning, who exposed outrages such as what the Staff Sergent soon to be Sergent plead to, still rots in jail.
The US Marine who took his men on a blazing, shooting rampage inside homes in the Iraqi town of Haditha in 2005, killing 24 Iraqi civilians and sparking international outrage, yesterday pleaded guilty only to dereliction of duty closing down a court martial where he had been facing far more serious charges of manslaughter.
The deal, which caught observers by surprise, means that Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich will now face a maximum of three months of confinement. He will also be demoted one military rank and will lose a portion of his pay.
It also closes down the court martial at Camp Pendleton in California and spelt the end of what had been the longest legal proceeding ever seen against members of the US military. All seven other soldiers involved in the case had already either been acquitted before yesterday or had agreed to testify against Wuterich at his court martial.