EDITORIAL: Haditha: Crime in the name of war?: OUR OPINION: THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR ATROCITIES MUST BE PUNISHED.

Jun. 2--Two years ago, reports and photos of U.S. soldiers -- both men and women -- abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq drove home an ugly truth about war. Horrible things can happen and, in fact, are predictable under the stress and strain of military combat. Today, the horror story comes from Haditha, a city northwest of Baghdad known to be a stronghold of insurgent activity. It is there that a small group of Marines are believed to have killed 24 Iraqi civilians without cause or provocation, including a child and an old man in a wheelchair. A coverup? If this is true, and several military and congressional investigations are either promised or under way, those responsible for the atrocities must be called to account for their actions. They should be charged with murder and punished severely if convicted. But the investigations must go further. Investigators should determine if there was a coverup by officers and commanders who knew what happened at Haditha. Hints that there might have been a coverup come from a contradiction between early reports in which Marines said the civilians were killed by a bomb and later accounts from forensic experts indicating that the victims were killed systematically while kneeling by gunshots to the head. Anyone involved in a coverup also should be punished just as severely. And the investigation shouldn't stop there. These mustn't be investigations where the only persons held accountable are rank-and-file soldiers and the officers who command them. ...