Soliders sent home for protesting civilian deaths

[nicky g]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,926135,00.html

Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday March 31, 2003
The Guardian

Three British soldiers in Iraq have been ordered home after objecting to the conduct of the war. It is understood they have been sent home for protesting that the war is killing innocent civilians.
The three soldiers - including a private and a technician - are from 16 Air Assault Brigade which is deployed in southern Iraq. Its task has been to protect oilfields.

The brigade includes the Ist and 3rd battalions of the Parachute Regiment, the 1st battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, a Royal Horse Artillery regiment, and a reconnaissance squadron of the Household Cavalry.

The three soldiers, based in Colchester, Essex, face court martial and are seeking legal advice, defence sources said yesterday.

The Ministry of Defence said it was not prepared to comment on individual cases. It said it had "no evidence" to suggest the soldiers had been sent home for refusing to fight.

Soldiers could be returned home for a number of reasons, including compassionate and medical, as well as disciplinary grounds, defence sources said.

But it is understood that the three soldiers have been sent home for complaining about the way the war is being fought and the growing danger to civilians.

The fact that they are seeking legal advice makes it clear they have been sent home for refusing to obey orders rather than because of any medical or related problems such as shell shock.

MoD lawyers were understood last night to be anxiously trying to discover the circumstances surrounding the order to send the soldiers home.

Any refusal of soldiers to obey orders is highly embarrassing to the government, with ministers becoming increasingly worried about the way the war is developing.

It is also causing concern to British military chiefs who are worried about growing evidence of civilians being killed in fighting involving American soldiers around urban areas in southern Iraq.

[brad]

especially if these soldiers are enlisted (and it appears they are since officers are generally not referred to as soldiers) , imagine what it would take for an enlisted man to protest. especially in a semi elite unit like airborne or air assault.

not to mention that british forces are known for being rather vicious (eg, falklan islands there were a few 'take no prisoners' incidents, in africa some (i think canadian) troops were sent home for being particularly nasty to locals)

[Billy LTL]

Three British soldiers in Iraq have been ordered home after objecting to the conduct of the war.

Are they ever in for a world of hurt.

[nicky g]

Furhter to this, from today's paper:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,926934,00.html

US troops accused of excess force

Steven Morris
Tuesday April 1, 2003
The Guardian

Correspondents in Iraq have come upon a number of incidents in which the US military, especially the marines, have appeared to act with excessive force. Here are some examples.
The bridge at Nassiriya
After suffering heavy losses in the southern city of Nassiriya, US marines were ordered to fire at any vehicle which drove at American positions, Sunday Times reporter Mark Franchetti reported. He described how one night "we listened a dozen times as the machine guns opened fire, cutting through cars and trucks like paper".

Next morning he said he saw 15 vehicles, including a mini-van and two lorries, riddled with bullet holes. He said he counted 12 dead civilians lying in the road or in nearby ditches.

One man's body was still on fire. A girl aged no more than five lay dead in a ditch beside the body of a man who may have been her father. On the bridge an Iraqi civilian lay next to the carcass of a donkey. A father, baby girl and boy had been buried in a shallow grave. Franchetti said the civilians had been trying to leave the town, probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks or heavy artillery. He wrote: "Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot anything that moved."

Cluster bombs
A surgical assistant at the Saddam hospital in Nassiriya, Mustafa Mohammed Ali, told the Guardian's James Meek that US aircraft had dropped three or four cluster bombs on civilian areas in the city, killing 10 and wounding 200.

He said he understood the US forces going straight to Baghdad to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but added: "I don't want forces to come into [this] city. They have an objective, they go straight to the target. There's no room in the hospital because of the wounded." When he saw the bodies of two dead marines, he revealed that he cheered silently.

Meek also told the story of a 50-year-old businessman and farmer, Said Yagur, who said marines searched his house and took his son, Nathen, his Kalashnikov rifle and 3m dinars (about £500). The marines argued the money was probably destined for terrorist activities. After protests by the father, who rose up against Saddam Hussein after the last Gulf War and had his house shelled by the dictator's artillery, they let the son go and returned the gun and money.

The road to Baghdad
Reporters have seen more than a dozen burnt-out buses and trucks and the bodies of at least 60 Iraqi men on the road north of Nassiriya. A photograph carried in the Guardian last week showed a bus which had been attacked by US troops. Bloodstained corpses lay nearby.

Reuters journalist Sean Maguire said there were four bodies outside the bus and - according to the marines - 16 more inside. The Americans told him the dead men wore a mix of civilian and military clothing and were in possession of papers "that appeared to identify them as Republican Guard". But Brigadier General John Kelly admitted to Maguire: "We have very little time to decide if a truck or bus is going to be hostile." The reporter described the bullet-ridden bus and the bodies as "evidence of the ruthless efficiency with which lead marine units are clearing the road north of Nassiriya to make way for a military convoy".

Exuberance
A British officer was alarmed when the American marines who were escorting him through the port of Umm Qasr let loose a volley of rifle fire at a house on the outskirts of town.

The officer told Reuters reporter David Fox: "They said they had been sniped out from there a few days ago so they like to give them a warning every now and then. That is something we [the British] would never condone." A US special forces officer said it was sometimes difficult to contain the exuberance of men doing the actual fighting. "You got to realise these guys are single-minded in their training. It's look after yourself and your buddies. How do we know who the enemy is?"

[nicky g]

And

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,926957,00.html

Allies divided over battle for hearts and minds

British military critical of US troops' heavy-handed style with civilians

Richard Norton-Taylor and Rory McCarthy in Camp as Sayliyah, Qatar
Tuesday April 1, 2003
The Guardian

Cracks are appearing between British and American commanders which have serious implications for their future operations in Iraq.
Senior British military officers on the ground are making it clear they are dismayed by the failure of US troops to try to fight the battle for hearts and minds.

They also made plain they are appalled by reports over the weekend that US marines killed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, as they seized bridges outside Nassiriya in southern Iraq.

"You can see why the Iraqis are not welcoming us with open arms," a senior defence source said yesterday.

General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the army, drove home the point at a press conference in London on Friday. "We have a very considerable hearts and minds challenge," he said, adding: "We are not interested in gratuitous violence."

British and American troops "must convince the Iraqis of their good intentions", echoed Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister. It was not clear whether he was referring to any particular incident.

Yesterday, British officers described the very different approach between UK and American soldiers by pointing to Uum Qasr, the Iraqi port south of Basra and the first urban area captured by US and UK marines. "Unlike the Americans, we took our helmets and sunglasses off and looked at the Iraqis eye to eye," said a British officer.

While British soldiers "get out on their feet", Americans, he said, were reluctant to leave their armoured vehicles. When they did do so - and this was the experience even in Uum Qasr - US marines were ordered to wear their full combat kit.

One difference emphasised yesterday by senior British military sources was the attitude towards "force protection". A defence source added: "The Americans put on more and more armour and firepower. The British go light and go on the ground." He made it plain what approach should be adopted towards what he called "frightened Iraqis".

British defence sources contrast the patient tactics deployed by their troops around Basra and what they call the more brutal tactics used by American forces around Nassiriya.

US marines in the southern Iraqi town appeared to have fired indiscriminately, with orders to shoot at civilian vehicles. One was reported to have knowingly killed an Iraqi civilian woman.

According to reports from journalists and military spokesmen in the area, British troops - Royal Marines and the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats - have played a patient, waiting game.

An officer described it yesterday as "raid and aid" - a combination of raiding parties against specific targets such as local Ba'ath party leaders, and at the same time delivering aid to the local population.

Unlike their American counterparts, British commanders have said they will not change their tactics following the suicide bombing attack last week on a group of US marines in Nassiriya.

The British military put the difference in approach down to decades of training as well as experience - first in colonial insurgencies in Malaysia, then in Northern Ireland and peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.

Experience
"42 Commando's last tour was in Northern Ireland," Major Tim Cook of the Royal Marines said yesterday, referring to the unit now in Uum Qasr. Before that it was in Sierra Leone. Other commandos in southern Iraq had recently been based in Pristina, provincial capital of Kosovo.

Sir Roger Wheeler, former head of the army, points to the "experience, awareness, and skill" - particularly important among non-commissioned officers such as corporals and sergeants. "British NCOs have the confidence," a senior officer echoed yesterday.

What is striking is the emphasis senior British military figures are placing on the differences between their approach and that of the Americans on the ground. They have gone out of their way to draw attention to nervous, "trigger-happy" US soldiers.

American commanders say they are getting the message. Brigadier General Vince Brooks, a senior US officer at central command in Qatar, said yesterday his troops had a "heightened awareness" about civilians on the battlefield.

He said soldiers were now aware they were facing a "set of regime players who will quickly put themselves in civilian clothes, hide weapons, do things that are inconsistent with the laws of armed conflict, exhibit brutalities against civilians.

"We still make determinations on the ground about whether a threat is posed or not. It is very, very difficult to sort that out."

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, went out of his way over the weekend to say his troops were learning from the British.

After agreeing with General William Wallace, commander of US ground forces in Iraq, that the enemy was responding in a way that the allies had not "wargamed" for, he said American - as well as British - forces could afford to be patient.

US marines in Nassiriya have said they had asked British troops for instructions in how to conduct urban warfare.

They began using new tactics in operations around the town yesterday when they started searching suburbs of the city block by block.

"We are going in to go block by block and we are going to weed out all enemy personnel," said Captain Rick Crevier, a company commander with the US Marines.

British military sources are now concerned that the experience in peacekeeping and unconventional warfare of British troops will mean they will be in Iraq long after the Americans have left, even for years, in policing and humanitarian operations.

Shortly after George Bush was elected president, the former chief of defence staff, Lord Guthrie, told the Guardian that the new administration was moving towards light, flexible forces which can "get there quicker but not stay around for ever". He added: "The Americans talk about the warrior ethic and ... that peacekeeping is for wimps."

Iraq has shown that the quick-light-flexible force strategy has not worked. The concern here among military chiefs is that the experience will mean the US will want to get out of places even quicker, leaving the British and others to continue fighting the battle for hearts and minds.

[nicky g]

And finally

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,927120,00.html

Seven women and children shot dead at checkpoint

Rory McCarthy in Camp as-Sayliya, Qatar
Tuesday April 1, 2003
The Guardian

American soldiers shot dead seven women and children yesterday when their car failed to stop at a checkpoint in southern Iraq, US military officials said last night.
The incident on Route 9, near the southern city of Najaf, was the worst single case of civilian deaths in the war that US forces have so far admitted.

Yesterday's shooting came after soldiers were ordered to be more cautious at checkpoints following a suicide car bomb attack on a checkpost on Saturday, which killed four US troops.

In the incident yesterday the car, carrying 13 Iraqi women and children, approached a checkpoint manned by soldiers from the US 3rd Infantry Division.

An US military spokesman at central command in Qatar said. "The soldiers motioned for the vehicle to stop but the motions were ignored."

"Then the soldiers fired warning shots which were also ignored. The soldiers then fired shots into the engine of the vehicle but it continued to drive towards the checkpoint.

"As a last resort the soldiers fired into the passenger compartment of the vehicle."

After the shooting the soldiers inspected the car and found the only passengers were women and children. Seven were dead, two were injured and four were unharmed.

However a dramatically different account of the same incident was provided by the Washington Post reporter who was with the troops at the time.

The reporter, William Branigin, said the troops opened fire fatally on the advancing car because they did not fire a warning shot soon enough.

According to Branigin's testimony, Captain Ronny Johnson, in charge of the troops manning the checkpoint, ordered them to fire a warning shot.

"Fire a warning shot," he told them as the vehicle kept coming. Then, with increasing urgency, he told the platoon to shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into its radiator. "Stop [messing] around!" Capt Johnson yelled into the company radio network when he still saw no action being taken. Finally, he shouted at the top of his voice: "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!"

That order was immediately followed by the loud reports of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's Bradleys. About half a dozen shots were heard.

"Cease fire!" Capt Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he peered into his binoculars from the intersection on Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"

The Washington Post said that 15 Iraqis were packed inside a Toyota car, along with as many possessions as the vehicle could hold.

Ten of them, including five children who appeared to be under five years old, were killed on the spot when the high-explosive rounds slammed into their target, Capt Johnson's company reported. Of the five others, one man was so severely injured that medics said he was not expected to live.

"It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I hope I never see it again," Sgt Mario Manzano, 26, an Army medic with Bravo Company of the division's 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, said later in an interview. He said one of the wounded women sat in the vehicle holding the mangled bodies of two of her children. "She didn't want to get out of the car," he said.

The checkpoint shooting will increase tensions between American and British commanders who are already alarmed about what they regard as trigger-happy tactics by US soldiers.

British rules of engagement, established after decades of experience in Northern Ireland - and latterly in peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo - are much stricter than the Americans'.

British commanders will be horrified that the American soldiers continued to fire at the vehicle.

[Cyrus]

...one of the wounded women sat in the vehicle holding the mangled bodies of two of her children. "She didn't want to get out of the car," he said

She must have been a Baath hardliner. She didn't want to let go of the heart of the two kids even though they were ripped out. Vicious people, those Iraqis.

[The_Baron]

"Cease fire!" Capt Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he peered into his binoculars from the intersection on Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"

This Cpt. needs to be publically stripped of his rank, have his saber broken across the knee of his commander and be run out to die in the desert. He's either in command or he's not. He's either responsible for the Marines under him or he's a hazard to everyone around him. An officer that doesn't support his troops, especially when they seem to be following his instructions, is no longer even particularly human. He is a waste of oxygen and should be summarily killed.
Warning shots are a, "neat idea(tm)." They're also a wonderful method of allowing an aggressor to identify your location, equipment and possibly the disposition of your forces. Had a, "warning shot", been necessary, the Bradley should have fired it into the vehicle's engine at the first available opportunity. The simple fact that this simpleton had his forces using a low powered machinegun to engage the target when he had the significantly more effective Bushmaster cannon available is a clear demonstration of his incompetence and inability to command.
The deaths of the family are a tragedy, I agree completely. Had this simple minded dolt who disgraces his uniform used even the tiniest shred of tactical sense, the deaths would have never occured. His Standard Operating Procedures would have called for the Bradley to fire a warning shot when a vehicle reached a specific point followed by a disabling burst when the vehicle failed to stop. This "officer" plain and simply screwed the pooch and I hope they toss him to the families of the dead Iraqis.

[The_Baron]

"While British soldiers "get out on their feet", Americans, he said, were reluctant to leave their armoured vehicles. When they did do so - and this was the experience even in Uum Qasr - US marines were ordered to wear their full combat kit."

Apparently the British didn't learn anything in Ireland. When in a combat environment, you wear your combat gear. When in an environment wherein you're being actively engaged, you use your most mobile assets to protect your forces. This translates to staying in the vehicle. The initial forces have no business being expected to be trying to secure the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. They're combat soldiers. They're children who've spent the most significant formative years of their lives being tought to kill people and blow things up. For their leadership to fail to rein them in is disgraceful in ways I can't honestly even put into words.
No, it's not "right" to kill civilians. It's not "right" to put a burst into a structure from which you received sniper fire. Of course a rational course would have left a smoldering foundation where that structure used to stand. Follow on Civil Affairs soldiers are trained to deal with hearts and mind issues, that's the basic foundation of their mission. Contract and volunteer aid organizations do hearts and minds as their basic function. The grunts at the front kill people and blow things up. Their leaders need to enforce rules of engagement.
The Brits are setting themselves up for a slaughter by entering an active combat area after deliberately removing their equipment. In technical military terms, this is refered to as, "asking to be kicked in the balls."

[nicky g]

He repeatedly ordered the gunner to fire warning shots earlier. The gunner didn't. Surely it's the gunner that should be run out into the desert.