Murtha - forced to bray in court

Charges against a US Marine allegedly involved in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha were dropped on Friday ahead of his trial, the military said in a statement.

A court martial for lance corporal Stephen Tatum had been due to start on Friday on charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.

However in a statement released from the Marines Camp Pendleton base outside San Diego, the military said the charges had been dismissed "in order to continue to pursue the truth seeking process into the Haditha incident."

It was not immediately clear if fresh charges could be laid against Tatum at a later date or whether the soldier may now cooperate with prosecutors.

Tatum had been accused of shooting dead two unarmed children as Marines cleared houses near the scene of a deadly roadside bombing in Haditha, 260 kilometers west of Baghdad, on November 19, 2005.

The deaths were part of a grim civilian toll from the Marines' actions in Haditha. Four soldiers were initially charged with murder and four officers accused of staging a cover-up.

However, since charges against the soldiers were first announced in late 2006, prosecutors have struggled to make the allegations stick.

Four of the eight have had charges against them dropped, while charges of murder were replaced by the lesser offence of manslaughter in the cases of Tatum and his squad leader Sergeant Frank Wuterich.

The military investigator overseeing Tatum's pre-trial hearing had recommended all charges against the soldier be dismissed.

The killings in Haditha are the most serious allegations of war crimes leveled at US forces since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Allegations by whom? The Democrats? Yes -- this sounds perfectly plausible to me -- our soldiers running into houses and killing children on purpose.

John Kerry and Jack Murtha

A federal judge has ordered Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) to testify in a defamation case related to the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha in 2005, according to the Associated Press.

Murtha, a former Marine. accused Marines of "cold-blooded murder and war crimes'' during the Haditha incident. Frank Wuterich, a Marine sergeant involved in the incident, has sued Murtha for libel and invasion of privacy over his comments. (He's going to get away with it because of the "speech and debate" clause of the Constitution -- if you want to know more, click here:)

Hey -- Murtha -- nice to know you always rally to America's defense when times are tough. I wonder if the objective media will be running any stories about Murtha being forced to testify. You know -- since they ran stories non-stop when he was out there accusing them of murder.