Haditha Marine May Sue Murtha, Time Reporter

Charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, for allegedly failing to investigate the Haditha "massacre," have been dismissed. The government can, though, appeal the dismissal to get charges reinstated. Colonel Chessani's lawyer is waiting for that shoe to drop or not before moving forward with a suit against Murtha and the Time reporter who wrote up what now appears to be a story wholly created by enemy insurgents for propaganda purposes:

In an interview with nationally syndicated radio talk host Michael Savage, the lead attorney for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani said he and his client will look into suing Murtha and the Time magazine reporter, Tim McGuirk, who first published the accusations by Iraqi insurgents.

Attorney Brian Rooney believes that Murtha made his "cold blood" statement for political gain:

"In my opinion, it's clear it was done during the election cycle, it was done to bolster himself in the party," the attorney said. "He was vying for a leadership position, and if he had to throw some Marines under the bus to do so, that was the cost of power for him."

Sounds spot on. This may explain why Murtha has so far failed to make an apology for his vicious smear campaign against the accused Marines. An apology would be an admission of culpability.