Say it ain’t so.

Lawyers for 4 Accused Soldiers Say They Acted on Orders

“On the morning of May 9, a group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division arrived in a remote desert area of western Iraq for a dangerous mission: taking out an insurgent training camp.

What happened then has become the subject of intense dispute.

Military prosecutors last month accused four soldiers in the unit of releasing three Iraqi men they captured that day, only to kill them. The soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder, a capital offense.

Lawyers for the soldiers deny that they released the detainees. They say the soldiers fired only after the Iraqis tried to break free and attack them.

But the lawyers are also making a more startling claim: that the soldiers were given explicit orders before the raid to