Marine lawyer: Haditha shootings not 'indiscriminate'

The way Neal Puckett tells it, his client, Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the senior marine in charge, did nothing wrong at Haditha. Puckett tells CNN's Soledad O'Brien that, after rifle fire from a house, marines searched the house. They believed that the insurgents had escaped into a second house, and also 'searched' that home, where 24 civilians were killed, but no insurgents.

Puckett tells O'Brien that the rules of engagement allowed the marines to run into the house under grenade cover, and then open fire. O'Brien counters that, according to CNN military advisers, who are retired generals, the 'rules of engagement' do not permit marines to run into a house under grenade cover and "open fire indiscriminately." Puckett snappishly tells her that "the retired generals weren't there that day" and it is incorrect to use the term 'indiscriminate' to describe the gunfire.

This is confusing, however, because if the marines were firing 'discriminately' then how did so many unlikely people get shot? According to O'Brien, CNN officials who have seen photographs of the victims at Haditha said that the victims included a woman and child lying down in a bed, an elderly woman, a one year old baby and even an elderly man in a wheelchair.