Photographer Barney Broomfield admits that his feelings about the war in Iraq, and about war in general, have become much more complicated in the last few months. In March and April Barney worked with his father, filmmaker Nick Broomfield, on The Battle for Haditha.
The film, now in post-production, is a dramatised account of the terrible events that took place in the Iraqi town of Haditha on November 19, 2005. By the end of that day, one American marine and 24 Iraqis, including women and children as young as three, lay dead.
First reports suggested that most of the Iraqis had been killed by a roadside bomb, but a Pentagon investigation concluded that they were in fact massacred by the US Marines, in retaliation for the death of one of their comrades when a Humvee was destroyed by an
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
The terrible events of
Haditha have been
re-enacted for a new
Nick Broomfield film. christopher goodwin reports from LA |
| |
insurgent's bomb.
It remains the most deadly such incident of the war and the Marines alleged to be responsible are due to be tried in the coming months.
Nick Broomfield used a dozen ex-marines, as well as a few actors, to play the marines involved in the Haditha incident. His son Barney gained his new perspective on warfare because he barracked with the men during the seven-week shoot in the old Roman town of Jerash in Jordan.
Barney not only took the stills which accompany this article, but was shooting second unit video footage of the daily lives of the marines, the kind of footage many young soldiers now shoot themselves and even post on YouTube.
"I had to go through various degrees of hazing to gain their trust," says Barney. "The first was 
|
