This is in conversation from Apple News. I'm Shemeza Basso. Today, how the shadowy

military justice system buries possible war crimes.

On November 19th of 2005, during the US war in Iraq, a group of US Marines killed 24

Iraqi men, women, and children in what would become known as the Haditha massacre.

The Pentagon is investigating an alleged rampage by U.S. Marines in Iraq.

It all started when four Marine Humvees entered Haditha.

The Marines initially reported that more than a dozen civilians were killed in a roadside bombing

and in the crossfire that followed.

But that was far from the truth.

It appears to have been an unprovoked attack by the Marines.

The people were killed when the Marines went into the houses and opened fire on them.

Killing women and children as they searched unsuccessfully,

apparently, for insurgents.

Iraqi eyewitnesses claim the Marines simply went on a rampage.

Then President George W Bush spoke about the killings.

I am troubled by the initial news stories.

I am mindful that there's a thorough investigation going on if in fact the you know laws there be there would be punishment. But a punishment would never come.

The feeling about haditho was well wasn't that the one that the American military

vowed to get right that this wasn't going to be one of those cases that you could say they

didn't do anything. That's Madeline Barron. She's host and lead reporter of the

investigative podcast in the dark from the New Yorker.

But when we started looking back into Haditha, it was, you know, surprising to remind ourselves that no one was punished for the killings.

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