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During Thursday's hearing, Hunsaker recounted in testimony a meeting with his squad leader during which he said a plan to kill detainees in their custody was discussed. Hunsaker said Girouard gave the order.

"He told us to cut the zip ties, tell them to run and shoot them. I went out and did just that," he said.

The Marine Corps has added to its training routine for Marines headed for duty in Iraq a required package of Rules of Engagement, Law of War, and counterinsurgency classes, on the topic "The My Lai Massacre and the Haditha Massacre: Common Lessons Learned," equating the incident in Haditha, where at most 24 civilians died, with the Vietnam War's Mai Lai massacre, where hundreds of civilians were deliberately murdered by U. S. Army troops.

According to one source, an instructor described as a Marine Corps lawyer speaking of the "crimes of Haditha" told his students that Mai Lai and Haditha resulted from "leadership failures, " leaving his Marine students with the clear impression that Haditha would live in infamy as a black mark on the history of the future Marine Corps, much as My Lai haunts the Army's history books today.

This is not the sole example of the presumption of guilt being applied to the Haditha Marines. NewsMax.com has learned that in the months since the Haditha allegations came to light, instructors in classrooms throughout the Marine Corps have been making references to the "Haditha massacre," their remarks usually laden with presupposition of guilt regarding the Marines involved. The speculation has consistently lacked the back-and-forth, two-sided debate of a typical unresolved issue, as Haditha is at this point.