Ex-leatherneck: Marines in video "went rogue"
The top officer in the Marines, Gen. James Amos, has named three-star Gen. Thomas Waldhauser to oversee the probe of the four Marines seen in a widely-circulated video apparently urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan.
The four have now been identified, but have not been detained and don't appear to be cooperating with investigators, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. No charges yet have been filed.
But Tim Kudo, a representative of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and a former Marine captain whose unit served in the same part of Afghanistan as the troops in the video, said the service members' recorded actions - if they actually were urinating on the bodies - are very atypical.
"Every Marine was absolutely shocked by what happened," Kudo told "CBS This Morning: Saturday" co-host Rebecca Jarvis. "Nobody would have expected something like this, not just from a unit, but any Marine in general. These actions are completely outside the norm, and basically a few individuals who went rogue.
"I don't see them as Marines," he continued. "I see them as people who have set back the war effort, put their fellow Marines in danger, and who stand in contradiction to pretty much everything the Marine Corps stands for and America stands for. So, it's very hard to look at them and see them as Marines in that way."
Kudo pointed out he "was in that area, and I feel like they did undo the effort that I put into that area and that the Marines who worked with me put into that area. While we can overcome it, it's gonna take a long time and a lot of effort. We've done it in the past - we did it in Iraq, But it's gonna take a lot of thinking and a lot of hard work and a lot of casualties, probably."
While combat is inherently intensely stressful, Kudo observed, it doesn't excuse what the four appear to have done.
"I think (superior officers) should investigate it and (the four should) be court-martialed," Kudo said.
To see the Kudo interview, click on the video above.