US military commanders in Iraq on Thursday ordered ethics training for combat troops, after accusations that Marines murdered unarmed civilians in an Iraqi town last year.
The training over the next 30 days in "core warrior values" would highlight "the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield," a statement said. US defence officials have said murder charges may be brought against Marines following an investigation into the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha in November.
Many Iraqis believe unjustified killings by US troops are common, although few have been confirmed by investigations. Echoing comments by President George W. Bush this week, a senior US military spokesman said anyone guilty of violations against civilians would be punished. "This tragic incident is no way representative of how coalition forces treat Iraqi civilians," Major General William Caldwell told a news briefing in the capital Baghdad.
He said that apart from Haditha, a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency, the US military was investigating three or four other cases, but did not specify.
Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of US combat troops in Iraq, said that of nearly 150,000 US-led troops in the country "99.9 percent of them perform their jobs magnificently" every day.
"Unfortunately, there are a few individuals who sometimes choose the wrong path," he said in the statement. The statement did not mention events in Haditha, which some commentators are comparing to the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam that helped turn many Americans against that war.
Iraq's new prime minister Nuri al-Maliki told Reuters this week he wanted investigations into Haditha and other cases. In an interview on Tuesday he said his patience was wearing thin with excuses that US troops kill civilians "by mistake".
A day after declaring a 30-day state of emergency in Basra, Iraq's second city, Maliki said he would present his candidates for the interior and defence ministers to parliament on Sunday.
He named his cabinet on May 20 without the two key security posts after failing to reach a consensus deal among the main blocs - the Shi'ites, minority Sunni Arabs, Kurds and secular parties - who form his national unity government.
Police and soldiers set up checkpoints and searched cars in Basra where Maliki had announced an "iron fist" security crackdown on Wednesday.
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