The Haditha incident places more than the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, under the global microscope. It's the legitimacy of our campaign to democratize Iraq that rightfully goes on trial here.

So far, the reports of military failures to properly deal with the incident have been appalling. The probe to date reveals that some of the Marine unit officers gave false information to their superiors about the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha.

Americans and America-watchers around the world can take some encouragement from the Bush administration's call for a full inquiry, one that would proceed independent of the White House.

Additionally, while there's nothing wrong with giving the troops training in "core values" and the rules of engagement, the gains from that exercise will be minimal. It would provide little more than a cooldown in "nation-building" efforts that have become protracted and tragically overheated.

Surely training is no substitute for what's really needed: the orderly and thorough investigation of the killings and the possible coverup.

If borne out, the violence in Haditha is anything but unusual in the chronicles of war. The cruel treatment of prisoners and even civilians is a recurrent scourge throughout our history. Soldiers, mired in violence and fear, dehumanize opposing combatants and the civilian compatriots of their foes.

The My Lai massacre comes most vividly to mind as precedent, perhaps because frequent comparisons are made between the Iraq engagement and the Vietnam War.

But there is a difference: My Lai occurred while that conflict was still in progress. Our mission in Iraq was supposed to have shifted to one of moving Iraq closer to self-sufficiency. The insurgency has bedeviled that process, an insurgency that our reconstruction strategy did not anticipate.

And so our soldiers, trained as fighters, deal with the instability by fighting rather than keeping the peace. While soldiers must be held accountable for their actions, so must the officials who put them in that untenable situation. Fault for these failures must be shared all the way up the chain of command, all the way to the White House.

If the United States is to pursue a campaign of promoting democratic principles around the planet, surely Haditha provides the arena in which we demonstrate what those principles mean. Justice must be done for justice's sake — and because the world is watching.