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NCIS: No evidence of 2nd ambush on MarSOC unit

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — An investigating officer said Monday there was no physical evidence to support that a Marine Special Operations platoon took small arms fire following a vehicle bomb attack last year in Afghanistan.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Robert O’Dwyer, who was assigned to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was part of the investigative team who went to Afghanistan nearly two months after the March 7, 2007 attack in Nangahar Province.

“I don’t believe a follow-on ambush occurred,” he said.

O’Dwyer testified the investigative team spent 60 minutes at the actual site of the attack on the six-vehicle convoy. He was the first witness of the day in the second week of the court of inquiry looking into the actions of Fox Company, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, who are alleged to have killed as many as 19 Afghan civilians according to some reports.

The inquiry is focused on the company’s former commander, Maj. Fred Galvin, and platoon leader Capt. Vincent Noble. Neither has been charged with a crime, but are suspected of conspiracy to make a false official statement, false official statement, dereliction of duty and failure to obey a lawful order.

Marines in the convoy who’ve testified so far have said they did not see anyone firing at them. But many have said they distinctively heard small arms fire.

Army military police, the first U.S. officials on the scene, arrived about 35 to 45 minutes after the attack, O’Dwyer said. He said they did not recover shell casings or other evidence to support a complex attack.

When NCIS investigators arrived in the country in May, they interviewed alleged Afghan victims in the attack.

“The interviews were pretty consistent,” O’Dwyer said. “Most said the same things in terms of the use of force.”

Those witnesses also said the firing came from the gun trucks. Witnesses also lied, but those primarily dealt with solatia payments, he said.

The court showed five separate lists compiled by various agencies tallying civilians allegedly killed and wounded in the attack. In those, the death tolled ranged from two to 26 while the number injured ranged from 23 to 77 people.

Fire and ammunition experts who examined bullet fragments collected near the site of the attack disagree on whether those fragments were fired from U.S. or enemy weapons.

Jerry Miller, an Army firearms expert, examined the driver’s side windshield of the second vehicle in the convoy. Miller said damage to that windshield was not caused by a bullet impact.

“You’ve got what appears to be sand,” he said. “It could have been a rock, something like that.”

He found a bullet impact in the second Humvee’s turret, but could not determine what type of bullet struck the turret. But he also identified fragments he examined as those from an AK-47 and a Dragunov, a Soviet sniper rifle.

Stacey Kerwien, a metals and ammunition expert with the Army criminal investigation lab, said the fragments she examined were likely were U.S. in origin. But she agreed on cross examination that it’s possible those fragments could have been fired from enemy weapons.

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