Marine Corps appoints general to lead corpse-desecration probe

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This image made on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 from undated video posted on the Internet on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012 by a YouTube user who identified themself as "semperfiLoneVoice" shows men in U.S. Marine combat gear, standing in a semi-circle over three bodies. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is branding as "utterly despicable" the video purporting to show four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters. The Marine Corps had said Wednesday that it was looking into the YouTube video but hadn't yet verified its origin or authenticity. (AP Photo)

Updated: February 15, 2012 8:12AM

WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps on Friday laid the groundwork for deciding what, if any, disciplinary action will be taken in the case of an Internet video purporting to show Marine snipers urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan.

The top Marine officer, Gen. James Amos, appointed three-star Gen. Thomas Waldhauser to oversee the case. Waldhauser named another officer to do an internal Marine Corps investigation, which is in addition to a criminal probe under way by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Waldhauser will decide what to do as a result of the investigations.

In Afghanistan, a senior U.S. commander issued a letter to all personnel in the international coalition that is fighting the war, explicitly reminding them of the need to respect the dead. The letter from Army Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, commander of the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, reflected the depth of concern about fallout from the video.

“Defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach of the LOAC [laws of armed conflict], violate basic standards of human decency and can cause serious damage to relations with the Afghan government,” Scaparrotti wrote.No one has been charged in the case, which triggered widespread outrage with the appearance Wednesday on YouTube of a brief video that appears to show four Marines in full combat gear urinating on the bodies of three dead men lying on the ground.

By Friday, the NCIS had identified and interviewed all four of the Marines who appeared in the video. AP