When the drums were beating along the Potomac for the heads of the Kilo company  (ginned up by TIME's McGirk, Murtha and Human Rights Watch), it would have been nice to have this information:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — U.S. Marines were so locked in battle with Iraqi insurgents on the day 24 civilians were killed in Haditha that a U.S. Marine officer considered bombing a house where the insurgents took refuge, he told investigators.

Maj. Sam Carrasco, who was overseeing troop movements in the area when two dozen men, women and children were shot in Haditha, said he believed at the time the civilians died in cross—fire between Marines and insurgents....

"We saw insurgents go into a house, and we did not drop bombs on that house because we did not have (positive identification)," Carrasco told investigators. "They had engaged a previous unit and had run into a house with weapons."

"We vectored the (Marine) squad and they got shot up. I watched the whole thing happen as they got shot up ... And now I'm kicking myself in the ass because we didn't drop the bomb and we didn't lead with appropriate force because we didn't have positive identification." ...

Clarice Feldman   9 23 06

Update: 9 24 06

Newsmax had much of this almost three months ago.