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This programme contains scenes which
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Hello and welcome to Global Eye
from the BBC World Service,

where we bring you some of the very
best of our global investigative

journalism and reportage.

I'm Anna Foster from
the Today programme

and this week we're in Iraq,

a country that I've
reported from many times

over the last two decades.

In the last few years,
Iraq has seen relative calm,

but it's endured terror,
chaos and bloodshed

both before and after the invasion

by American and British
troops in 2003.

A battle against the
Islamic State terror group -

who took over a swathe
of the country in 2014 -

only made things harder.

Iraqis have just been to the polls

in the first election since
the political crisis in 2021.

Over the next half hour,
I'll be looking at just how much

the ghosts of Iraq's violent past

still haunt its political presence.

We'll bring you an Eye Investigation
that sheds light on one of

the darkest chapters of
America's occupation of Iraq.

With eyewitness testimony and
never-before-shown footage,

we reconstruct the
anatomy of a war crime -

what really happened in Haditha
on November the 19th, 2005.

And as Iraq continues to struggle
with chronic power shortages

and soaring temperatures,

we'll meet people finding
innovative ways to adapt,

transforming their lives

and providing security
for their families.

Life here in Iraq today bears
little resemblance to the country

that I first came to
back in the late Noughties,

when I joined British forces to
report on the troop surge by them

and the Americans to try to
crack down on the country's

increasingly violent insurgency.

But now, here in Baghdad,
the sound of gunfire

and roadside bombs has given way
to the noise of construction.

There are skyscrapers and
luxury apartments being built.

And look - the markets
here are always busy.

The restaurants are packed with
people who travel from miles around.

And although the city still isn't
a completely safe place to be,

it has come a long way from the dark
days of President Saddam Hussein

and the chaos that
followed his downfall.

His dictatorship was
defined by rigid control

and widespread repression,

and life here has
changed significantly now,

but the path to this point has
been fraught with turmoil and peril.

Over the years, Iraq has
transitioned from a country

of sectarian violence
and instability

into a fragile democracy,

with power shared uneasily
across ethnic and sectarian groups.

It's something we see in various
countries across the Middle East

and here, that delicate arrangement
has brought some stability,

but it's also stifled
growth and development,

and for many Iraqis, it's something
that has held the country back.

I was most recently
here in Baghdad in 2021,

covering the political
crisis that was triggered

by the last set of elections.

The mood was volatile,
voter turnout was low.

It was a real sign of the widespread
public discontent over corruption

and the slow pace of reform.

And despite protesting
for change, young people

in particular just didn't believe
that it was about to happen.

Then hundreds of Iranian-backed
militia members tried to storm

the heavily fortified Green Zone,

which holds the Iraqi parliament.

It all looked like any kind of
progress would be hard to achieve,

but after lengthy talks,

the Shi'a politician
Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani

emerged as the compromise
candidate that every faction

could at least live with,

and another fragile political
settlement was born.

Al-Sudani proved to be a
relatively popular leader,

bringing stability to
the country domestically

and successfully walking the
tightrope of maintaining Iraq's

crucial relationships
with the US and with Iran.

His political coalition won the
most seats in last week's election

and he looks set to
form the next government.

The incoming administration
will have a full inbox -

reviving an economy
that has started to falter

and dealing with rampant
official corruption.

And it will have to handle America's
continued military presence

in the country.

The last remaining US troops in Iraq
were meant to be leaving this year,

but that timetable has now slipped,

leaving visible reminders
of the war in a country

that is still scarred by its past.

America's presence here
still casts a long shadow

and, more than 20 years
after the invasion,

one incident in particular has
left enduring questions

about the conduct of
some American troops

and about their rules of engagement.

On the 19th of November, 2005,

US Marines killed 24 civilians
in the Iraqi town of Haditha,

northwest of Baghdad.

Many of them were
women and children.

The brutal events of
that day led to the longest

and most expensive war
crimes investigation

in US military history.

Six Marines were
implicated in the killings.

One stood trial, but none
served any time in prison.

Now, after a forensic
investigation over three years,

BBC Eye can reveal never-before-seen
evidence which implicates

two Marines who were never
prosecuted for the deaths of the

innocent civilians in Haditha.

Here's their exclusive report.

Iraqis claim the Marines went on
a rampage in the town of Haditha

after one of their own men was
killed in a roadside bomb attack.

There had never been
a case on this scale

that involved the death
of 24 Iraqi civilians.

WAILING

I'm trying to remember...

..what happened.

Time, 12:24.

Photography starting on house four.

Checking for defects.

We're going to be here
longer than we thought.

I ended up getting sent to Haditha
to do a forensic analysis.

We ended up having four sites

where there were killings that
were brought into question.

The Marine version of events is

there was an improvised explosive
device that was triggered.

It took out the last
vehicle in their convoy.

The very lead of the convoy was
pulled up almost adjacent to

a vehicle that had several
Iraqi males in it.

The Marines said there were some
suspicious things about the vehicle.

They shot and killed
the men from the car.

That became...
Our first scene is roadside.

They also reported
receiving gunfire.

There was a house in that direction.

As they moved through
the house to secure it,

that resulted in the death
of three adult males,

a mother, a child, and others.

They saw who they thought was
the gunman leave through the back,

so they followed into house 2.

House 2 is where we
end up with the father

being shot by the front door

and then the horrific
scene in the back bedroom

where the mother and the
children are shot on the bed.

So what we're looking at,
at the end of the day, is

that there were 24 deaths at the
hands of the Marines in Haditha.

Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich
will face a military trial

for leading a Marine squad

that killed 24 Iraqi
men, women and children.

Wuterich was one of eight Marines
originally charged with murder.

Sometime early in 2006,

I got a phone call

from someone who was
seeking an attorney

for Staff Sergeant Wuterich.

I had represented other soldiers
and Marines accused of war crimes,

but once you see the photographs

and read the forensic analysis,

anyone who was presented
with that information

could never believe that these
casualties were unintended.

What happened in here that allowed

two women and five children

to be identified as a threat,

as a target, and to be...

.."mitigated" would
be the polite word.

I'll use the word "executed".

It's absolutely certain -

he either heard and/or
saw you shooting.

I do not, honest to God,

remember firing in house 1 or 2.

I know I threw a grenade
into house 2. Mm-hm.

OK, so you don't remember
shooting in the houses at all?

I don't.

We have statements from the Marines

and, in house 2, we have two
different versions of events.

Mendoza gives a very elaborate
statement of what happens.

They entered the house.

We have Mendoza saying he
was going down the hall.

Mendoza clearly states

that the one that was still
in the hall was Tatum,

so there's a lot of invocation to
Tatum is the one doing the shooting.

In Tatum's statement,

he's following Wuterich
into the house.

So, certainly with Tatum,

he places himself in the room,

firing across the head of the bed.

Then we have Wuterich,

and he never makes a
statement to NCIS,

but he makes some early statements.

Very simple - "We were there,
we cleared the house, we left."

Based on Tatum's statement,

we placed Wuterich in that room,
doing that shooting.

Frank seemed to have the worst
memory about the events in house 2.

While he remembered
making entry to the house,

he couldn't tell us basically
anything that happened after that.

So, in 2008,
Frank went back to Haditha.

This seemed like perhaps the only
way we could get Frank to remember.

When we're talking about
a forensic reconstruction,

the Iraqi versions of
events doesn't matter,

the Marines' version of
events doesn't matter.

It's "what can we physically
determine happened

"based upon the physical evidence?"

We have someone

firing from the hallway through
the doorway of that room,

which kills the aunt,
and she collapses there.

When we look at

Tatum and Mendoza's statement,
the aunt is ignored.

She's not mentioned.

So, at that point, we know that

their statements have
at least one portion

where they're changing
what happened.

We have the shooter
immediately moving past her body,

penetrating into the room,
turning at the foot of the bed

and beginning to shoot
their way across the bed.

At the same time,

we have someone coming
in behind them...

..facing the bed from the side

and shooting across
the head of the bed.

On one of the victims,

the last to be shot,

she actually appears
to be simultaneously shot

by both shooters at the same time.

We knew that we were going to have

to deal with solid evidence

that there were two shooters
in that room.

Our job, at that point, became...

..somehow proving

that one of those shooters was
not Staff Sergeant Wuterich.

..so it'll be clear on the record
when someone reads the transcript.

Any objection by counsel
to that procedure? No, sir.

The client may continue. Yes, sir.

Mendoza places himself at that room,

and he places himself
opening the door.

So, against his own self-interest,

he places himself as the
primary player at that door.

OK. Waited for the doors to open.

This is the first
time I've heard this.

Now, he's going
eight feet into the room,

which is the shooter position.

And I've never heard
this before today.

So, if you were to ask me,
"Is this a confession of sorts?"

what I'd say is Mendoza confessed

to everything except
for pulling the trigger.

OK.

We had always known
that Lance Corporal Tatum,

he admitted in his statement

that he positively identified

a child before he shot that child.

They dismissed the charges.

They never had a trial.

And now suddenly they had

Lance Corporal Tatum
on their team as well.

We want to present you
some evidence,

most of which will be
presented at the court martial.

This is kind of a trial run.
You're a focus group.

We did a mock trial.
We presented a case not like

we would in a courtroom,
but as close as we possibly could.

And they...

..reacted very negatively.

Reduction of rank,

bad conduct discharge
and eight years confinement.

With a dishonourable
discharge in 15 years.

House 2 is morally corrupt,

and if I thought so,

death penalty.

We understood that our
client was in jeopardy,

despite our best case.

Frank could be convicted
of homicides.

More now on
the conclusion to

the biggest and longest running
criminal case against US troops...

Some time into the trial,
the main prosecutor,

he just kind of pulled me aside
and he said,

"Neal, would your guy be willing
to take a plea deal?"

I was preparing to testify.

I stood up, adjusted my necktie and
started down the hall,

and they said, "Stop.

"We don't need you."

And then they reached a plea
agreement with Frank Wuterich.

If I had taken the
stand and testified,

I would have said that the best

explanation was
two shooters in that room,

Mendoza leading

and Tatum firing across
the head of the bed.

What would it have
done for the larger...

..concept of justice?

Nothing, because both Tatum
and Mendoza had been given immunity.

So, you've spent a
lot of time with Frank.

Do you genuinely believe

that he doesn't remember
or he doesn't want to remember?

I don't know.

I don't know what I believe.

You can watch the full film
on BBC Two at 11pm

on the 2nd of December
and on BBC iPlayer.

There's also a podcast
with much more about

the survivors and families in Iraq.

That's No Justice, Just Kills
on BBC Sounds.

This week, the BBC World Service

is launching an exciting new
commitment to dial up

women's storytelling
across our global output.

BBC Global Women
will share stories throughout

the year across BBC News

and the BBC World Service
and on television,

radio, online and
social media every day.

We as students are on the
right side of the future.

I'm working as a content creator.

When we stand up for the truth,
we protect each other.

And that's how real change begins.

Here in Iraq,

people are really feeling
the impact of climate change.

Summer temperatures
now reach 50 Celsius

far more regularly than
they did just four decades ago.

And when the heat peaks,
power cuts often follow,

sometimes lasting for days

and leaving communities
struggling to cope.

But even amid these challenges,

people are finding
innovative ways to adapt.

The Kulak Solar Village
in the Kurdistan region is

the first of its kind in Iraq.

Powered 24 hours a day
by electricity from solar panels,

the project
has transformed daily life,

especially for local women,
who are now able to earn a steady

income and provide greater
security for their families.

We came to Kulak Village

because we want
to promote sustainability.

We want to create communities
where they thrive.

In this village,

we have secured solar panels
for all of the houses,

the local mosque, the school.

And that has meant their lives
are completely transformed.

Our long-term aim is
to replicate this throughout

villages
in Iraq and Kurdistan Region.

We want to make sure

that our countryside
stays full of life.

We don't want people to leave
because they don't have electricity.

Thanks for joining me here in Iraq

for this week's
episode of Global Eye.

And we'd really like your
feedback on the programme.

So do let us know what
you think on social media.

You can use the hashtag...

We'll be back at the
same time next week.

Goodbye.