In the third week of his war crimes trial Monday, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich avoided manslaughter charges and 152 years of jail time by entering a guilty plea to dereliction of duty by negligence.

He admitted to unintentionally influencing the Marines he commanded to believe they could operate beyond the military's rules of engagement.

After a Nov. 19, 2005 roadside bomb attack in Haditha, Iraq, that left one Marine dead, Wuterich and his squad immediately shot and killed five men near the blast. Then after told by the platoon commander to “clear south,” Wuterich led his team on a house-to-house search that left 19 men, women and children dead.

The case was among the most shocking to emerge in the Iraqi war.

Seven other Marines had been charged with involvement in the case, but were cleared.

In a Monday morning hearing confirming the specifications of his charges, Wuterich leaned forward and told the judge, Lt. Col. David Jones, in a calm tone how he was negligent in leading the team on the fatal house-to-house hunt.

“I took a team of Marines to clear houses to the south and did use the words ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ — or something to that effect — prior to clearing or entering those homes,” he said.

He was not willfully negligent, the judge told the court, but the instructions he gave Marines were misleading.

“They might have taken that advice and would take that as marching orders,” he said.

Wuterich faces up to three months in confinement, reduction to the lowest grade of military pay and two-thirds pay while in confinement for involvement in the Iraqi civilian deaths.

Attorneys in the case negotiated for nearly two days last week, but were not able to resolve the case and continued negotiations over the weekend.

The deal is not a reflection or in any way connected to how the prosecution felt its case was going in the trial, Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel told reporters.

Wuterich — a single father of three daughters — avoided nine counts of voluntary manslaughter, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and three counts of dereliction of duty. Though he admitted to killing the five men, the judge will not consider those deaths in his sentencing on Tuesday.

Military-aged males near a bombsite could be considered dangerous, witnesses have told the military jury. But the rules of engagement that day required the Marines to positively identify a threat before using deadly force against an individual.

Witnesses who testified in the trial said they believed homes contained triggermen and shooters, so they entered the homes shooting and tossing grenades.

Jones told the court that Wuterich's words influenced his Marines in violating the engagement rules.

“By saying those things to those Marines — that was negligent,” he said. “It sounds [like] they did take [the instructions] by shooting people they shouldn’t have shot or not giving the same paramount importance to the rules of engagement.”

The judge also asked Wuterich what he should have told the Marines instead.

“I honestly probably should have said nothing,” Wuterich said. “I think we all understood what we were doing. I probably should have said nothing.”

Wuterich said the team should have relied on the training they were given before and during the deployment instead of his instructions.

“I offered those words of advice and I shouldn’t have done that and it resulted in a tragic end,” he said.

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