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Iraq friendly fire video causes a storm
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/06022007/325/iraq-friendly-fire-video-unleashes-storm.htmlLONDON (Reuters) - U.S. and British officials denied trying to hide the details of a friendly fire incident on Tuesday after a classified cockpit video was leaked showing U.S. pilots mistakenly killing a British soldier.
Lance Corporal Matty Hull was killed by U.S. friendly fire during the second week of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. A British coroner's investigation into his death has reignited questions over whether both allies are doing enough to protect their troops from friendly fire deaths.
Coroner Andrew Walker suspended his inquest last week after learning that there was video of the incident that the government would not allow Hull's family to see. That video was leaked to the Sun on Tuesday.
I don't know what's more pathetic: The US government sending ill-trained cowboys to machine gun their own allies and then covering it up, or the British government aiding the cover up in detriment of its own people and nation.
In fact, I know what's more pathetic: the latter. It's bad enough the US will look after its own even if it's wrong and they're breaking the rules or attempting to cheat justice. It's a lot worse when our own spineless govenment will aid a foreign nation to do so in detriment of the British people and the soldiers who are sent to fight wars by it.
Nauseating...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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That is to say, what justice are they escaping from?
They received minimal or no training at all about markings that allowed them to recognised Allied troops and vehicles, or even a crash course on what British vehicles looked like.
I should have imagined in such circumstances the family of the dead man and to a lesser extent those injured in the attack should be entitled to rather substantial compensation for the screw up. Concealing video footage of the event and only agreeing to release it after it's been leaked sounds like a serious offence to me.
They happen in war.
To be fair to the soldiers/pilots, Aladdin, if you listen to the tape they sound absolutely devastated when they realise whats happened.
What you doing posting on here??? Go look after that gorgeous baby of yours!!!
The pilots must be wrecked as well, it'd be bloody hard to live with killing some of your own and given that the same coroners court had an unlawful killing on both the blue on blue deaths in 1991 and Terry Lloyd you can perhaps see why the US fear the pilots being the subject of a witch hunt.
PS MoK you a father again?
Yeah! He's the man! Check out the gorgeous baby pics in 'Anything Goes'.
Yeah saw the pics - cute baby and now we know where Osama Bin Laden has being hiding as well :thumb:
But my main beef here is the subsequent video cover up. Specially by the British government. I wouldn't and didn't expect any better from the US government, but the British government??? Disgusting.
When was the last time you heard the government come out with a big scandal, holding their hands up saying 'we're sorry, it turns out we've done this'. It's just politics at the end of the day.
What I find peculiar is how - in general - friendly fire is (rightly so) perceived to be terrible, but the killing and injuring of civilians / non-combatants is clinically referred to as 'collateral damage', without inquiries and witch hunts. Really, the people who authorise use of cluster bombs in residential areas should at the very least be suspended for ignorance.
Sorry for my little side-rant
Or as we showed quite aptly in world war 2 whilst doing all the good stuff we were apparently in doing in saving the world, that targetting the civilian populations of germany was quite effective in breaking morale.
Hell, what's the point of fighting if you've no home and no family left to defend? Sorry, I really am starting to go off on one
For all the good that 'alls fair in love and war' - it's not fair, in my mind.
eh hem, Jim, we're P&D posters; the angsty antisocial troles of thesite. I think it's a rare occasion when we actually go toodle around in other forums.;)
if i were him id show it without their permission
then id probably be extradited to face charges, but at least i done the right thing
Instead it's turned into a political football and that's unnecessary.
Bottom line is that people will die during war. He was a soldier, he was in a warzone and he died. Hardly unheard of, is it?
Sure you can argue about the level of training but that won't stop events like this, they'll still happen. The only way to stop them is not to have wars at all and that is never going to happen.
And thank y'all for the comments. Both are well and sleeping at the moment. I'm making the most of it.
Accidents due to bad luck or a chain of events are just that: accidents.
Accidents caused by unnaceptable lack of training and procedure are preventable and only happened due to negiglence by those in charge.
A resignation somwhere and a significant payout to the victims and their families wouldn't be out of place IMO.
And then there is the whole issue of sitting on the video footage and pretend it didn't exist.
Fast moving or not, those Brits had orange panels to signal that they were FRIENDLY. The pilots thought the panels were rockets, they should of taken a better look. Our boys even let off red smoke which means their friendlies, yet the A10 Thunderbolt pilots still attacked again. They never had clearance to engage and they were not 100% sure they were Iraqi, they again questioned it after the first hit.
Want the tape?
In incidents like this? You bet.
Do you want an inquiry into every single blue-on-blue?
He was a soldier, he died in a war. No payout and no damages.
Perhaps the question really is, why is it considered "classified"?
Indeed, that way - had those actually been rockets - we could be talking about dead pilots instead.
As it happens they were British so it's made the news, how many times do you thinks it's happened with just ordinary Iraqi civillians?
Terry Lloyd? Who was shot and killed by the Yanks whilst travelling in an Iraqi ambulance, away from the battlefield.
If they were rockets they were being carried to another destination, the pilots thought the trucks were Russian ZIL 131's, their like the sort of thing you'd stick a horse in, not launch a missile from. They also thought they were what looked like flat bed trucks which would only carry small cargo and even if there was a rocket launcher system installed those pilots would of been in shit any way, not matter how close, assuming they were surface to air missiles.
If they didn't make this check they'd be to blame. Because they did it seems to be the incompetence of that intelligence that is at fault, not the pilots.
(Hence: "we're in jail, dude")
But you don't believe in payout due to negiglence in any circumstances? Hypothetically speaking, how about if a tank was known to be defective and yet was knowingly sent to the battlefield by officers, and their occupants were killed because the tank broke up and was left behind?
Indeed...
There's no training in the world for being told that there are no allied forces in the area, and then- just after you've released the bombs- being told that actually, there are. They did everything by the book, and you can hear the horror in their voices.
Shit happens in war. Would it have been better if it had been an Iraqi dropping the bomb? Or if it had been an Iraqi sitting under the bomb? Not really. But it wouldn't have been such a big issue (or indeed, any issue at all).
Of course there was a "cover up", but compared to Aldermaston this is nothing. The worst thing is that a national newspaper managed to get hold of a classified document.
They asked the wrong question. Here are the errors...
ERROR ONE came when they asked the Forward Air Controller, call sign Manila Hotel, if friendly forces were around the Iraqi vehicles — not to the west.
ERROR TWO neither pilot gave the precise grid references for the Household Cavalry patrol to double check its identity.
ERROR THREE saw them convince themselves the identification panels were really orange rocket launchers.
In ERROR FOUR POPOV36 decides to attack, saying he is “rolling in” — without permission from the Forward Air Controller. POPOV35 asks for artillery to fire a marker round into the target area to clear up confusion.
ERROR FIVE came when POPOV36 attacked without waiting for it. In ERROR SIX POPOV36 strafes the column for a second time but still doubts its identity.
It's not just one mistake it's a catalogue of mistakes.
I'm not going to get all worked up about it because if it had been an Iraqi convoy we wouldn't be sitting here complaining, and the same amount of people would be dead.