WASHINGTON -- It took nearly a month for President Bush to be told that the military was investigating reports that Marines killed unarmed civilians in Iraq, the White House said yesterday.
Earlier this week, Bush aides said the president was briefed ``soon after" the opening of the probe.
A Time magazine reporter first asked US military officials on Feb. 10 about the circumstances surrounding the alleged massacre on Nov. 19, in which 24 people in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq, were killed after a bomb attack on a military convoy in which a Marine died. On Feb. 14, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, ordered an investigation into the case, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said yesterday.
