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Page 1 of 3 Daily-Dose, Watch The Debate  Did Former Marine Jimmy Massey Lie About U.S. Military Atrocities in Iraq? A Debate Between Massey and Embedded Reporter Ron Harris
Jimmy Massey is a 12-year veteran of the U.S Marine Corps who participated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Before going to war, Massey was a Marine recruiter and boot camp drill instructor. But his experiences in Iraq caused him to have a change of heart. After he was honorably discharged in December of 2003 he vehemently spoke out against the war, and help found Iraq Veterans Against the War. Massey also confessed to participating in and witnessing atrocities while in Iraq and these accounts were published in newspapers and magazines across the country. Massey also made international headlines in December of 2004 when he testified on behalf of war resister Jeremy Hinzman at a refugee hearing in Canada. At the time, Massey told Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board "I do know that we killed innocent civilians." He then recounted how US forces once fired up to 500 rounds of ammunition into four cars filled with civilians after they failed to stop at a checkpoint. On the next day, he said he witnessed Marines shooting dead four unarmed Iraqi demonstrators. Massey has written an autobiography titled "Kill, Kill, Kill" that was recently published in France. Earlier this month, Ron Harris a reporter at the St. Louis Dispatch who was embedded with the Marines, wrote a series of articles claiming that Massey lied or exaggerated his claims. Harris writes that statements from Massey's fellow Marines, Massey's own conflicting accounts and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, discredit his allegations. Following the article by Ron Harris, the editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee - one of the first newspapers to publish Massey's story in May 2004 - says they should have looked more into the credibility of the story. David Holwerk writes, "We should have done more to check the truth of Massey's charges before deciding whether to publish them" he goes on to write that running the story, "raises serious questions about The Bee's performance." Meanwhile, columnist Michelle Malkin writes, "Jimmy was Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and John Kerry all wrapped up into one tidy, soundbite-friendly package -- a poster boy for peace topped off by a military uniform and tattoos to boot. But like a lot of the agitators who pose as well-meaning, good-faith peace activists, Jimmy Massey was something else: A complete fraud." Massey has responded with an article posted on the Web. He sticks by his account of atrocities in Iraq and accuses Ron Harris of retaliating against him for calling attention to what he says was his inaccurate reporting while embedded in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Jimmy Massey joins us from Miami. Ron Harris is on the line with us from Washington D.C. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! JIMMY MASSEY: Thank you.  AMY GOODMAN: Well, why don't we start off with Jimmy Massey. Your response to the allegations that you have been inaccurate? JIMMY MASSEY: Yeah, the most important point is that Ron Harris openly admits he cannot read or speak French. Therefore, he has never read the book, which is where the whole truth with no secondhand information can be found. AMY GOODMAN: Ron Harris. What are your main concerns about Jimmy Massey's account of his time in Iraq? RON HARRIS: Let me just respond to that really quickly. No, I don't read French, but I interviewed the author of the book, and she said there’s also -- in that book there’s no corroboration of any of Jimmy Massey’s claims. And that’s the big problem here, that Jimmy Massey makes a lot of claims, but at no point, not on your show in his previous interview or at any point, has he introduced any evidence that shows that any of these claims are true. That's number one. And number two, he has actually retracted statements that he made, again on your show and in other newspapers. He claimed that he saw tractor-trailers filled with bodies of innocent civilians, men, women and children who had been killed by U.S. bombs and artillery. And when I asked him about it, he said ‘Well, actually, I didn't see it. I heard about it.’ Well, I did see those tractor-trailers. In fact, Andy Cutraro of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took photographs of those trailers, and in those trailers were bodies of all men, the vast majority dressed in green military uniform. Jimmy Massey claimed that he saw a four-year-old girl shot in the head. It’s not true. When I interviewed him he said, “Well, I actually didn't see a four-year-old girl shot in the head, but I heard about it. I was there when she got shot, and the other Marines told me about it.” Well, again we were there at that same incident in which he claimed Lima Company, which is one of the companies, shot that girl. Well, there was no four-year-old girl shot in that shot [inaudible]. Did the Marines shoot innocent civilians? You bet. They did shoot innocent civilians. We reported it, we took photographs of it, we published it. But in that case there was no four-year-old girl. He claimed on three occasions that he shot a six-year-old girl in the head and killed her. Then when I asked him about it, he said, “Well, actually, I didn't do it, but my unit did it.” So, his claims go back and forth and go back and forth, and then he’s admitted that some of this stuff is not true, and then again, you know, when I try to verify these claims and interview the people who were there, including all of the journalists who were there, and we certainly weren’t about the business of covering up what the Marines did. As I pointed out earlier, I reported that, in fact, on the second day of the war, Marines shot and killed a British television crew. So, it is not my job nor my desire to cover up for the Marine Corps, and that hasn't been part of my performance.  AMY GOODMAN: We are going to go to break, and we’re going to come back to this discussion. Ron Harris is the Washington correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He was embedded with Marines in Iraq. Jimmy Massey is a former Marine staff sergeant, honorably discharged in December 2003. Our guests are Ron Harris, Washington correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Jimmy Massey, former Marine staff sergeant, honorably discharged in December 2003. When Jimmy Massey returned from Iraq, he said he engaged in the murdering of civilians in Iraq and has told the story throughout the country. Jimmy Massey speaking to us from Miami, Ron Harris from Washington D.C. Can you respond to some of what Ron Harris said from tractor-trailers filled with bodies to the killing of a four-year-old and six-year-old girl? JIMMY MASSEY: Sure. The makeshift morgue was definitely – I admit it was secondhand information that I did receive from other Marines, and I did make that point clear in the book, that it was secondhand information. AMY GOODMAN: And explain, what was the story that you told about the tractor-trailers? JIMMY MASSEY: Yes, I had told about Marines discovering tractor-trailers loaded with bodies. Now, what is so specific about this is Mr. Harris quotes Lieutenant Colonel Belcher in a series of reports, saying that the bodies had tear wounds, shrap metal wounds, and what Mr. Harris says is the word "apparently." And I know from talking with other journalists that you never use the word "apparently." So he is actually speaking from secondhand information about the makeshift morgue, but it was hearsay from other Marines, but I put it as hearsay in my book. The four-year-old child -- the only person that actually mentions the four-year-old child is Mr. Harris. There is an internet site when you pull up or you google “four-year-old child,” and when you google “four-year-old child,” it’s actually Mr. Harris’s report. And it says that another company or another Marine from Lima Company witnessed the four-year-old child. So I never – RON HARRIS: No, let me read it to you right now as it was reported in Gainesville, Florida, on September 8, on a Thursday. “Massey said he saw a four-year-old girl with a bullet hole in her head,” quote, and you can't take that back.
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