US Lawmaker, ex-Soldier Duncan Hunter Admits Committing War Crimes in Iraq

Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter from California proudly confessed to war crimes when he said his unit in Iraq raw “killed probably hundreds of civilians” during 2004 where he served as an artillery officer.

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During a podcast interview released last Monday. Hunter supported Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL facing a premeditated murder charge for stabbing an injured Iraqi person to death.

"I was an artillery officer, and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah, killed probably hundreds of civilians, if not scores, if not hundreds of civilians," Hunter said. "Probably killed women and children, if there were any left in the city when we invaded. So do I get judged, too?"

U.S. President Donald Trump is looking to pardon Gallagher, a move Hunter supports​​​​​. "I frankly don't care if he was killed, I just don't care," Hunter said, adding that, "even if everything that the prosecutors say is true in this case, then, you know, Eddie Gallagher should still be given a break, I think."

Gallagher has been accused of stabbing and killing a 15-year-old alleged Islamic State Group militant, shot at civilians from a sniper’s nest, posed for a photo next to a corpse, and performed his re-enlistment ceremony next to a corpse.

Hunter said he also took a photo with a corpse and many in the armed forces do the same practice.

Donald Trump have been pardoning alleged or convicted war criminals of the U.S. forces saying that these soldiers fought “hard and long.”

“Some of these soldiers are people that have fought hard and long. We teach them how to be great fighters, and then when they fight sometimes they get really treated very unfairly. So we’re going to take a look at it,” the president said.

Early May he granted a full pardon to Michael Behenna a former army lieutenant who was convicted of killing an unarmed Iraqi man.

In 2009 Michael Behenna was convicted for “unpremeditated murder in a combat zone” of Ali Mansur during an unauthorized interrogation.

The military, however, is opposed to the pardons, especially in prosecutions launched by them as the president is not supposed to interfere in them.

Martin Dempsey, a retired army general said pardoning a convicted war criminal would send a wrong message and set a “bad precedent.”