Twelve bodies -- five children, five women and two men -- were wrapped head to toe in woolen blankets, lying in a neat row on the floor of the only room remaining in a house that had been blasted to mud-brick rubble by at least one and possibly two 675-pound rockets. A U.S. Marine Corps battalion commander, Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, stood in that room Tuesday with a relative of the victims, a local elder named Haji Mohammad Karim, and said what he could. 'I bring my deepest condolences and will provide all of my support,' the colonel told him. There was no recrimination, only sorrow. Christmas, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, had arrived near this place in northern Marjah by helicopter just before dawn; his beleaguered Company K, after three days of heavy fighting, was finally getting resupplied. Bridges had been put over the canals nearby, so roads could reopen. 'The resistance has been a little thicker than I would have liked for the forces I have,' the colonel said, as he led a foot patrol over to the house later in the day. On Sunday, Company K had been in their fighting positions a couple of hundred yards away from the family's mud-walled compound when the rocket or rockets struck it. Since then several versions of what happened have emerged. Eager to demonstrate the coalition's commitment to avoid civilian casualties, and to take responsibility for them when they do happen, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, immediately issued a statement saying that 12 civilians had been accidentally killed, that the rocket launcher had missed its target by 300 meters and would be suspended from service, and that apologies had been conveyed to President Hamid Karzai. An investigation was ordered. The investigation found that the targeting system -- the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System -- had not been defective, a spokesman for the NATO-led coalition force, Lt. Col. Todd Vician of the U.S. Air Force, said Tuesday. He said the suspension was lifted, allowing the system to be returned to use as a defensive weapon. As to what did happen, however, he said, 'We are still waiting for those results and hope to have an answer soon.' To the Marines of Company K, and an embedded reporter accompanying them, one thing seemed clear: The company had not ordered a rocket strike on that house. At the time they were taking fire from many houses in the area. 