Rep. Duncan Hunter Says His Unit Killed ‘Probably Hundreds of Civilians’ in Iraq

While defending an accused war criminal during an interview, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) said that his Marine unit in Iraq killed “probably hundreds of civilians” including women and children.

Hunter made the comments while appearing on the Barstool Sports military podcast Zero Blog Thirty after the host asked about the congressman’s defense of Navy SEAL chief Eddie Gallagher, who is accused of slashing the throat of a wounded, teenage Daesh militant and taking a picture alongside the corpse.

“I frankly don’t care if he was killed,” Hunter said of the teen ISIS fighter, who was waiting for medical treatment prior to Gallagher allegedly killing him. “Even if everything the prosecutors say is true in this case, Eddie Gallagher should still be given a break, I think.”

“I think this guy was gonna die anyway,” he added of the wounded Daesh fighter.

Hunter continued by bringing up his own record to raise the question of whether he should face the same treatment as Gallagher:

“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, probably killed women and children, if there were any left in the city when we invaded, so do I get judged too?”

While on Fox News last week, Hunter, who is facing a trial over campaign corruption charges, said “put me in jail then” while discussing Gallagher’s alleged war crimes.

The Republican also admitted to posing to with corpses of deceased enemy combatants, saying, “Eddie did one bad thing that I’m guilty of too, taking a picture with a body and saying something stupid and then texting that. He took a picture with the body with his knife out and texted it to some buddies and said, ‘I got this one with my knife.’”

Listen to the interview below, starting at around 0:31:45 of the podcast.

[featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images]