posted by Jennifer Hlad on Jan 29
Closing statements began this morning, with Maj. Phillip Sanchez wrapping up the government’s case.
After more than 40 witnesses and more than 5,000 pages of documents, Sanchez said, “try as you might, the facts will not fit together neatly. … You will be forced to decide whether individuals are lying to you.”
Sanchez compared the case to the Apollo 1 disaster, when three astronauts died in a fire during a launch pad test of the craft. In that case, a rush to launch he classified as “go fever” caused people to overlook the obvious issues. A similar problem afflicted MARSOC and MSOC-F, he said.
“‘Go fever’ permeated the process” of the command’s standup and the unit’s training and deployment, Sanchez said. The command was “too focused on creating and organizing itself.”
The company also was overly focused on “shooting and operating,” instead of other concerns, like staffing, Sanchez said.
The company had “a false sense of urgency,” he said, a desire to prove themselves as “a world class (direct action) force.”
“They weren’t going to let anybody get in their way,” Sanchez said.
There was “no senior Marine leadership available to Maj. Galvin down range,” Sanchez said, and if there had, the incidents likely would never have happened. And the company’s liaison officer should have “shouldered the burden” of the logistical shortfall, Sanchez said.
“This friction was completely avoidable,” he said.
The court of inquiry has been in session for as long as the company spent operating in Afghanistan, he said, and there were at least eight people who could have stepped in at some point and helped mitigate the problems.
Still, he said, “the commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do.”
The court of inquiry would not have been called if Galvin was patient, and had conducted missions only in their assigned area, Sanchez said.
“MSOC-F takes no responsibility,” he said. “They had trained too hard not to be able to prove themselves. … They were forced to achieve success quickly, but that (need) was self-imposed.”
“Their boots don’t even have the dust of Afghanistan on them, and they already are worried about whether they had time to kill somebody,” Sanchez said.
The company’s “no-fail mindset” led them to believe they were right and everyone else was wrong, Sanchez said.
“It’s the world against MSOC-F,” Sanchez said, characterizing the company’s mindset.
The events of March 9 — which have not been discussed in open session — may be an issue of both incompetence and an integrity problem, Sanchez said. The three missions the Marines conducted that day resulted in two overturned vehicles, one Marine injured, two Afghans injured, two instances of shots fired, a mission in violation of CJSOTF’s orders and a conspiracy to cover it up, Sanchez said.
“There was a collapse of command and control,” he said.
Sanchez discussed the various things he considered proof of injuries on Highway 1, including a statement by Staff Sgt. Nathaniel Travers, testimony from Afghan witnesses and hospital records.
He also said two Marines reported hearing Capt. Noble issue an order to “cease firing warning shots,” but Noble denied issuing or hearing that order in his statement to Col. Pihana, Sanchez said.
The Marines did not understand the difference between the cultures of Iraq and Afghanistan, Sanchez said.
“Instead of adapting to their situation, they threw rocks and wanted to make the Afghans adapt to them,” he said.
Sanchez said five Marines — Roberts, Baker, Bravo, Hayes and Sheik — lied about their participation in the events of March 9. Four of those Marines also “had the best view of what was going on” March 4, but said they did not see anything.
“We know they lied (about March 9,” he said. “These are the same individuals who may have told you untruths on the stand.”
“Failure to acknowledge or accept responsibility for mistakes of 4 and 9 March demonstrates an absense of true moral courage and misplaced sense of loyalty by (Direct Action Special Reconnassaince) Marines,” Sanchez said.