U.S. Attempts to Stem Video Outcry

Pentagon officials went to lengths Thursday to avert damage to the U.S. war effort from a video that shows a group of Marines urinating on militants' corpses.

Pentagon officials went into damage-control overdrive Thursday over a controversial video, which appears to show a group of Marines urinating on militants' corpses. Julian Barnes has details on The News Hub. Photo: Reuters

Even before the military confirmed the video's authenticity, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to say he found the images deplorable.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House also expressed remorse. "Anyone found to have participated or known about it, having engaged in this kind of conduct, must be held fully accountable," she said.

Mr. Karzai strongly condemned the video as "inhuman." A statement from his office called for an immediate investigation and "severe punishment" for the U.S. troops featured in the video.

The Americans' full-court press appeared aimed at conveying to the Afghan and U.S. public that the incident was an aberration. Western officials in Kabul described Mr. Karzai's reaction as levelheaded and not inflammatory, a break from his use of similar past incidents to stoke anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan. Pentagon officials said they were also heartened by a Taliban statement that the incident wouldn't derail attempts to begin peace talks.

The video, which emerged on YouTube and other sites, runs less than a minute. It depicts four men in Marine Corps combat gear urinating on three corpses. "Have a great day, buddy," one of the Marines is heard saying.

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This image, which has been cropped by The Wall Street Journal, was taken Jan. 11 from an undated YouTube video and shows what is believed to be U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan. Click to see a larger image. Warning: the image is graphic.

The Defense Department launched multiple investigations to identify the Marines in the video and the person who took it.

Military officials said the Marines in the video were from the 3rd Battalion 2nd Marine Regiment from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, a unit that is highly trained but not in the same elite class as Navy SEALs or Marines Special Operations forces.

Defense officials said that they didn't know who posted the video and that the investigation isn't expected to focus on that issue.

Two of the Marines in the video have been identified and are facing questioning but have not been arrested or detained, a military official said. The Marines aren't likely to be publicly identified unless they are charged.

Penalties could range from a dishonorable discharge for violating good order to court-martial for war crimes, which carries potential prison sentences. Marines accused of desecrating enemy combatants' bodies could be charged with violations of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice that carry a punishment of two years in prison, lawyers say.

The military investigation also is likely to examine actions of the unit's commanders. Current and former military officers said strong leadership should have prevented an incident such as the one depicted in the video.

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A file picture shows Afghan President Hamid Karzai during the last day of a meeting with Afghan tribal elders and leaders in Kabul on Nov. 19, 2011.

While unlikely to face criminal charges based on the video alone, the unit's leaders could face administrative discipline, which could end their military careers.

The Marine unit was deployed to northern districts of Helmand province of Afghanistan from March to September 2011, suggesting that the video was shot during the spring or summer. The unit has returned home and some of its officers have moved on to other units, making an investigation of the command climate potentially difficult, officers say.

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Fighting has been intense at times in northern Helmand. During their six months in Afghanistan, seven Marines in or attached to the unit were killed.

But military officials said Thursday that no matter how tough the fight was, the Marines should have known from their training that desecrating corpses of enemy fighters was a violation of the laws of war that could have a strategic impact on the war effort.

WSJ's Julian Barnes has details of U.S. efforts to start peace talks with the Taliban as a catalyst to end the war in Afghanistan. AP Photo/Allauddin Khan

Both in boot camp and in predeployment training, Marines receive lectures on cultural sensitivity and the laws of war. That training sometimes includes information about Islamic burial traditions, which stipulate bodies of the dead must be washed and buried within 24 hours.

It is unlikely that the Marines in the video would have received specific warnings about desecrating corpses, current and former Marines said.

The Taliban condemned the video, saying in a statement that U.S. forces have committed "war crimes, inhuman and immoral deeds" through the 10 years of war. But a spokesman also told several news organizations by telephone that the outcry over the video won't affect the insurgents' tentative negotiations with the U.S.

During the Iraq war, images and accounts of wrongdoing by U.S. military personnel, such as pictures of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, turned Iraqi public opinion against America.

In Afghanistan, where far fewer people have televisions or even electricity, the images aren't likely to spread widely. But accounts are likely to spread orally, and could fuel more violence against the coalition by Afghans who feel that the disrespect shown to the dead violates Islam.

The Taliban have a tainted record on that score themselves. When they took over Kabul in 1996, they brutally killed Mohammad Najibullah, the deposed communist president who was seeking refuge at a United Nations compound in the city. They hung his castrated corpse and that of his brother from a traffic light on a busy street in Kabul, in violation of Islamic tradition. The Taliban in recent years frequently hung suspected government spies from trees in areas they control.

A Western military official in Kabul said the coalition learned of the latest video late Wednesday night local time from a website called Liveleaks. In Washington, the Marine Corps first learned of the video when they were contacted on Wednesday by the Sun newspaper in Britain. Like the Wall Street Journal, the Sun is owned by News Corp.

On the U.S. side, incidents of abuse or misconduct have occurred throughout the Iraq and Afghan wars. Marine Staff Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, testifying this week in the trial of another Marine accused of killing civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, acknowledged urinating on one of the slain Iraqis after that battle was over.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned a video published on the Internet that appears to show US Marines urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters and called for the punishment of anyone involved with it.

Thomas Draude, a retired Marine general who teaches at the Marine Corps University, said in the current age, images like the one in the video can quickly have strategic effects on the battlefield.

"The old saying, 'The good, the bad and the ugly' is so different now from days past, where images were long delayed. There just was not that immediate impact," Gen. Draude said. "The cell phone video, the instantaneous Internet connectivity, makes the requirement for leadership on top of things even more important."

Gen. Draude said the quick reaction from the Pentagon was "the right thing to do, as well as the smart thing."

At the moment, there are no plans to review the cultural sensitivity training U.S. Forces receive, a Western military official in Kabul said, but "leaders are re-emphasizing our values."

By Thursday night, Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the deputy commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, was preparing to send coalition troops a letter reminding them of the "proper conduct in war and conflict" and the coalition's "values—differentiating between right and wrong and treating insurgent bodies with respect."

Write to Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com and Maria Abi-Habib at maria.habib@dowjones.com
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