Four years ago, President Bush used 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union address as proof Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa. That claim, along with the others that made up the Bush administration's case for war against Iraq, soon unraveled. Today, a vast majority of Americans have learned to become skeptical of many phrases tossed out.

Now, another 16 words have surfaced, this time from the battlefield Bush's words created, and they should not be greeted with skepticism, they should shock sensibilities.

"It was just here is something that happened, and it was on to the next thing."

The words come from Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the general in charge of Marines in al Anbar province in 2005.

The something refers to the deaths of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha in November 2005.

Three enlisted Marines have been charged with murder in the deaths and four officers have been charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the killings, the biggest such incident involving civilians in the Iraq war. Facts about what occurred during and after have been coming out at the preliminary hearing for Capt. Randy W. Stone, one of the officers charged in the case.

Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a Humvee convoy. One Marine died and two suffered injuries. Marines shot five Iraqis standing near a car and then went house to house, clearing each with grenades and machine guns, searching, they claimed, for insurgents. The dead included women and children.

According to a May 11 Reuters news story, a Marine sergeant admitted in court Wednesday that he urinated on a dead Iraq civilian because he had been angered that one of his fellow platoon members had been killed. The sergeant also testified that the five men by the car had their hands tied when the unit's squadron leader killed them.

Civilians caught in a war zone always run the risk of becoming casualties from errant bombs, stray bullets, booby traps and firefights. But such deliberate killing of civilians in Haditha that November day should not be swept aside, in Huck's words, as merely a "truly unfortunate" consequence of war. Such a sentiment underscores the callous attitude of the Marine chain of command toward the killings.

No investigation ensued because "no bells and whistles went off," Huck testified.

When Haditha's town council complained eight days later to Marine officers about the killings, they were dismissed.

"My assessment was the city council was being used as a tool of insurgent propaganda," Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore testified by phone from Iraq.

And Maj. Dana Hyatt, a civil affairs officer for the unit at the time, testified he did not feel the deaths warranted further investigation. Blood-splattered beds and hair stuck to the ceiling did not sway him; he merely distributed $40,000 in compensation to the relatives of the dead. Sorry, here's a check doesn't absolve anyone.

Not until a reporter from Time magazine began asking questions three months after the incident did an investigation get under way.

Everyone, it seems, from Marines on the ground to those in the upper echelons knew of the killings, but did nothing about it, despite military rules that compel troops to report and probe suspected violations of the law of war. Evidently, the Haditha killings just didn't seem important.

The way the Marines handled things suggested a cover-up in the making, especially in light of the news release issued by the Marines public affairs office after the incident. The release blamed the deaths of the civilians on the improvised explosive device that had killed the Marine.

The killing of civilians has happened often in Iraq. It happens also in Afghanistan, that other theater of war heating up again. Airstrikes left 57 villagers dead in Parmakan in April, nearly half women and child. May 8, less than 24 hours after U.S. officials apologized for an incident in which 19 civilians had been killed by Marines, reports came in of at least 21 civilians killed during an airstrike in Helmand Province.

Nothing suggests these incidents occurred as callously or as deliberately as those in Haditha, but they do bear looking into.

The majority of U.S. troops in the war zones uphold some of the best traditions of the American character under the most trying of conditions. That makes the actions of the few who flip out or take personal revenge that much more damaging to this nation's credibility.

Everyone involved should be disciplined for failing to come down hard and swift on those who have discredited the uniform they wear.

Nothing less will do.

Richard Larsen is a deputy opinion page editor at The Star. His e-mail address is rlarsen@VenturaCountyStar.com.