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Testimony of a US ex-marine
By Rosa Miriam Elizalde
A: A liar. The Bush administration has forced the US youths to join the armed forces
and what the government basically does –and I did too—is trying to get people
through economic incentives. During three years I recruited 74 youths who never told
me that they wanted to join the armed forces because they wanted to defend their
country or due to any patriotic reason. They wanted to get money to go to university
or get a health insurance. So, I would first tell them about all those advantages and
only in the end I would tell them that they will serve our homeland. I never happened
to recruit the son of a rich person. In order to keep our job, we as recruiting officers,
could not think of any scruples.
Q: I understand that the Pentagon has been less demanding as to the requisites to
join the army. What does that mean?
A: recruiting standards have enormously been eased, because almost nobody wants
to join in. Having mental problems or a criminal record is no longer a problem.
Persons that have committed felonies can join the army; that include those who have
been given over-one-year sentences, which is considered a serious crime. Also
accepted are youths who have not concluded high school studies; if they pass the
psychological test, they can join the army.
Q: You changed after the war, but could you tell me about your feelings before that?
A: I felt just like the other soldiers who believed what they were told. However, since I
began my recruiting work I felt bad about it: as a recruiting officer I had to tell lies all
the time.
Q: But, you believed that your country was involved in a fair war against Iraq.
A: Yes, Intelligence reports we received read that Saddan had weapons of mass
destruction. Later, we found out that everything was a lie.
Q: When did you find out you had been deceived?
A: Once in Iraq, where I arrived in March 2003. My platoon was ordered to go to the
places formerly controlled by the Iraqi army and we saw thousands of thousands of
ammunitions in boxes bearing the US label; they were there since the US had
supported the Saddan government against Iran. I saw some boxes with the US flag
on them and I even saw American tanks. My marines—I was a sergeant with E-6
category, a staff sergeant, which is a higher rank and I had 45 marines under my
command— would ask me why there were US ammunitions in Iraq. They couldn't
understand it. CIA reports said that the Salmon Pac was a terrorist camp and that we
would find chemical and biological weapons there, but we found nothing. In that
moment I began to think that our real mission in Iraq was focused on oil.
Q: The most disturbing lines in your book are those in which you describe yourself as
a psychopathic murderer. Could you explain why you said that?
A: I was a psychopathic murderer because I was trained to kill. I was not born with
that mentality. It was the Marines that trained me to be a gangster in the interest of
US corporations, a criminal. They trained me to fulfill, without thinking, the orders of
the President of the United States and bring him what he asked for, without any
moral consideration. I was a psychopath because we were trained to shoot first and
ask later, as an insane person would act, not a professional soldier that is to face
another soldier. If we had to kill women and children, we would do it; therefore, we
were not soldiers, we were mercenaries.
Q: What specific experience of yours made you reach that conclusion?
A: Well, there were some of them. Our mission was to go to different cities and
guarantee security in the roads. There was an accident in particular—and many
others as well—which really put me in a serious situation. It was about a car with Iraqi
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civilians. All intelligence reports said that those cars had bombs and explosives on
board. That was the information that we received. When those cars approached our
areas we made warning shots; when they did not slow down to the speed we
indicated, we would shoot at them without ceremony.
Q: You shot at them with your machineguns?
A: Yes, We expected to see explosions every time we riddle the cars with bullets; but
we never heard or see an explosion. Then we opened the car and all we found was
people killed or wounded, not a single weapon, not a single Al Qaeda propaganda,
nothing. We only found civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Q: In your book, you also described how your platoon machine-gunned peaceful
demonstrators. Is that right?
A: Right. In the surroundings of the Rasheed Military Complex, South of Baghdad and
near the Tigris River, there was a group of people staging a demonstration, right at
the end of the street. They were youths; they had no weapons. So, when we
advanced, we saw a tank parked on one side of the street, the driver told us that
they were peaceful demonstrators. If those Iraqi people had had any violent
intentions, they would have blown up the tank; but they did not. They were only
staging a demonstration. That calmed us down because we thought that "if they
were there to shoot at us, they had already had enough time to do so. " They were
standing about 200 meters from our patrol.
Q: Who gave the order to shoot at the demonstrators?
A: We were told by the high command to keep watching those civilians, because
many combatants with the Republican Forces had taken off their uniforms and were
wearing civilian clothes to undertake terrorist attacks against US soldiers. The
intelligence reports we received were known basically by every member in the
commanding chain. All marines were well aware about the structure of the
commanding chain that was set up in Iraq. I think that the order to shoot at the
demonstrators came from high-rank US administration officers, which included both
military intelligence agencies and governmental circles.
Q: And what did you do?
A: I returned to my vehicle, my Humvee (a highly equipped jeep) and I heard the
sound of a shot over my head. My marines started shooting, so did I. We were not
shot back, and I had already shot 12 times. I wanted to make sure that we had killed
people according to combat requirements set by the Geneva Convention and the
operational proceedings established in the rules. I tried not to look at their faces, I
only looked for weapons, but I found none.
Q: How did your superior officers react at that?
A: They told me that "shit happens. "
Q: And when your marines found out that they had been deceived, what was their
reaction?
A: I was second in command. My marines asked me why we were killing so many
civilians. " Can you talk to the lieutenant? ", the answer was "No". But when they
found out that it all was a lie, they were really mad.
Our first mission in Iraq was not aimed at offering humanitarian assistance, as the
media said, but to secure oil fields in Bassora. In the city of Karbala, we used our
artillery during 24 hours; it was the first city we attacked. I thought we were there to
give the population food and medical assistance. Negative. We kept on advancing
towards the oil fields.
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Before arriving in Iraq we went to Kuwait. We got there in January 2003 with our
vehicles loaded with food and medicines. I asked the lieutenant what we were going
to do with all those supplies, since we had little room for us with so much stuff. He
told me that his captain had ordered him to download everything in Kuwait. Shortly
after that, we were ordered to burn everything, all the food and the medical supplies.