The probe into the Haditha killings has found they were unprovoked:

A preliminary military inquiry found evidence that U.S. Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked attack in November, contradicting the troops’ account, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

Forensic evidence from corpses showed that victims had bullet wounds, despite the initial statements by Marines that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb that also claimed the life of a soldier, a defense official said.

Of course Bush is promising action on this:

President George W. Bush said on Wednesday there would be punishment if an investigation turns up evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. Marines in the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha.

“I am troubled by the initial news stories,” Bush said. “I am mindful there is a thorough investigation going on. If in fact laws were broken there will be punishment.”

I guess that action would be criminal punishment for the actual shooters and medals of freedom for the people who covered it up. And for those who don’t believe there was a cover-up check out the following.

Exhibit A:

The three-week probe was the first official investigation into the killings.

Three week probe! These killings happened last November, over six months ago. We just now investigated it and started making conclusions. I think to all the right-wing pundits denouncing Aruba when they hadn’t charged anyone with Natalee Halloway’s disappearance within a month. Here we have obvious killings with bodies and don’t even start investigating it for six months. Where is the outrage now? Oh that’s right – these aren’t rich white American girls; they are Iraqis. The right wingers don’t care about them.

Now for Exhibit B:

Watt’s investigation also reviewed cash payments totaling $38,000 made within weeks of the November shootings to families of victims, The New York Times said.

In an interview with the newspaper on Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt said his superiors told him to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but the other dead civilians had been determined to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.

So our military compensated them. This order came from higher ups. This kind of money had to be approved and how far up this approval went is yet to be known. What is for certain is that $38,000 for 15 lives is crap.

So are we learning from these mistakes? Apparently not:

U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women — one of them about to give birth — when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials and relatives said Wednesday.

Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday.

Jassim, the mother of two children, and her 57-year-old cousin, Saliha Mohammed Hassan, were killed by the U.S. forces, according to police Capt. Laith Mohammed and witnesses.

The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings.

Between Haditha, Abu Gharib and now this, we better get our troops out of there yesterday. Iraq is a stable nation right now compared to what it will be in the near future.