BAGHDAD - The U.S. commander in Iraq has been sent a report that recommends better training and command procedures after probing whether Marines covered up the killing of civilians in Haditha last year, officials said on Friday.
Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, head of ground forces in Iraq, completed his review of an investigative report into whether Marines involved in the Nov. 19 incident lied about what happened when up to 24 Iraqi civilians were killed and whether senior officers sufficiently examined their account.
The report is separate from a Naval Criminal Investigative Service probe that U.S. politicians privy to some evidence have said seems likely to lead to charges of premeditated murder.
"Chiarelli completed his findings and recommendations today and forwarded copies of the report to the commander (of) Multi-National Forces-Iraq," the military said in a statement.
A U.S. military official in Baghdad said the report found room for improvement in areas "from reporting, to training to the command environment" but stressed the report was "purely administrative" and not a basis for criminal proceedings.
Chiarelli received the findings of the investigative team headed by Major General Eldon Bargewell three weeks ago.
The military official said it was Chiarelli's goal to make public the report's findings as soon as possible, with the goal of "full and total disclosure".
The probe was one of a series into alleged misconduct by U.S. troops in Iraq. The Haditha case in particular has drawn comparisons with the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
The Marine Corps has instructed commanders to retain documents related to the killing of Iraqi civilians both in Haditha and Hamdania, both in western Anbar province, because Congress will likely hold hearings and request the information, according to a memo obtained by Reuters.
Seven Marines and a Navy medic have been charged with premeditated murder and other crimes in the April killing of an Iraqi civilian in Hamdania, a village west of Baghdad.
Iraqi officials accuse Marines of shooting dead up to 24 people in Haditha, including women and children in their homes, after a Marine was killed in a roadside bomb attack.
The July 6 memo instructs all commanders to retain and preserve documents and e-mail messages related to those incidents, "their planning, execution and subsequent reporting and any documents referring to any aspect of them."
"The alleged events at Haditha and Hamdania have generated intense interest both in the media and Congress," the memo stated. "We can reasonably anticipate that Congress will hold hearings regarding those events and will request the production of records that pertain to them."
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