US military ready for "pain" over Iraqi killings

BAGHDAD, July 8 (Reuters) Commanders can expect a ''day of pain'' once the top US general in Iraq reviews a report that finds they failed to act on complaints their troops killed 24 civilians at Haditha, a US military official today said.

The report into whether officers failed to investigate or even covered up for Marines accused by Iraqis of killing men, women and children in cold blood was passed to General George Casey yesterday, the military said in a brief statement.

Disciplinary action now seems likely, officials said, over failures by 2nd Marine Division officers in their command duty.

''The Marines will go through their day of pain,'' said a military official in Baghdad familiar with recommendations made by ground forces commander, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli.

Its findings should be made public soon, possibly in a week, as US generals and diplomats strive to assure a sceptical Iraqi public and their new government that soldiers are being held accountable for a string of suspected abuses.

Those include a rape-murder case that has outraged the nation and fuelled calls for the 127,000 Americans to go home.

It is for Casey to decide what disciplinary action to take over Haditha. The report prepared by Major General Eldon Bargewell identified failings in areas ''from reporting, to training to command environment'', the military official said.

He made clear that action is likely, but stressed that the report is entirely separate from the criminal murder probe under way into troops accused by Iraqis of shooting the 24 people on November 19 after a bomb killed a Marine.

The key complaint against senior officers is a failure to question inconsistencies in their troops' accounts of the day.

Haditha is in violent Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni minority's insurgency in the west where three US soldiers attached to a Marine unit were killed in action today.

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