Perry defends US Marines accused for Afghan video

TEXAS Governor Rick Perry, scrambling to keep his US presidential bid alive, accused the Obama administration on Sunday of overreacting to a videotape that shows four Marines appearing to defiling dead fighters in Afghanistan.

“These kids made a mistake. There’s not any doubt about it. They shouldn’t have done it. It’s bad,” Perry told CNN’S “State of the Union” programme.

“But to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top,” said Perry, who faces a possible make-or-break performance in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary on Saturday.

The US Marine Corps named an investigative officer last week to decide what, if any, charges to bring against the four Marines shown in the widely circulated videotape.

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other members of the Obama administration have denounced the action by the Marines.

“Defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach of the (law of armed conflict),” Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, who heads day-to-day Afghan operations, wrote to the troops last week.

Perry, a former Air Force pilot, said the four Marines should be appropriately punished. “But going after them as a criminal act, I think (is) really a bad message,” he said.