Nothing points to a “knowing coverup” of Haditha

I wonder if the MSM news outlets will saturate the airwaves and their news sites with this one?

Haditha Report to Fault Oversight, Official Says
But the findings apparently do not indicate a deliberate cover-up by officers looking into the slayings of 24 Iraqi civilians.

WASHINGTON — The general charged with investigating whether Marines tried to cover up the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha has completed his report, finding that Marine officers failed to ask the right questions, an official close to the investigation said Friday.

Nothing in the report points to a “knowing cover-up” of the facts by the officers supervising the Marines involved in the November incident, the official said. Rather, he said, officers from the company level through the staff of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in Baghdad failed to demand “a thorough explanation” of what happened in Haditha.

Malkin reminds us of what John Murtha said three weeks ago (via the WaPo):

A powerful member of Congress alleged yesterday that there has been a conscious effort by Marine commanders to cover up the facts of a November incident in which rampaging Marines allegedly killed 24 Iraqi civilians.

“There has to have been a coverup of this thing,” Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, charged in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “No question about it.”

Read more via AllahPundit, who has some interesting PhotoShopped pix of Rep. John “No question about it” Murtha.

There’s a small glimpse of ‘hope’ however, for those who want to use what happened in Haditha to delegitimize the Iraq war:

In an official announcement about the report by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, a military spokeswoman said that Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli would “thoroughly review the voluminous report as quickly as possible,” but had no timetable.

They’ll be pinning their hopes that the thorough review will come up with just the opposite conclusion.

Also blogging about this: Captain Ed, Riehl World View, Flopping Aces, Macsmind,

Prior:

• Murtha may be called to testify
• More sliming of our troops from the MSM
• First hand account from Sgt. who led Marines in Haditha
• TIME issues correction on Haditha story
• Media coverage of Haditha: this cartoon says it all
• How our troops try to avoid civilian casualties
• How Islamofascists use our own media against us
• Michael Yon: Haditha in context
• Today’s must-read on Haditha
• Chris Hitchens: Haditha is not My Lai
• Mark Steyn on Haditha
• A series of posts on Haditha
• Jed Babbin on Haditha
• Murtha slimes our troops: “…it looks like it’s the policy of our troops to do something like this.”
• The Haditha incident
• Does Rep. John Murtha know something we don’t?