[shamrock_uk]

A good article on the failings of checkpoint procedures can be found here

Some quotes..

*snip - italian hostage story* But the conditions for the journey, up a road that is considered the most dangerous in Iraq, were broadly the same as those facing all civilian drivers approaching American checkpoints or convoys. American soldiers operate under rules of engagement that give them authority to open fire whenever they have reason to believe that they or others in their unit may be at risk of suicide bombings or other insurgent attacks. Next to the scandal of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, no other aspect of the American military presence in Iraq has caused such widespread dismay and anger among Iraqis, judging by their frequent outbursts on the subject. Daily reports compiled by Western security companies chronicle many incidents in which Iraqis with no apparent connection to the insurgency are killed or wounded by American troops who have opened fire on suspicion that the Iraqis were engaged in a terrorist attack. Accounts of the incidents vary widely, as they have in the incident involving Ms. Sgrena, with the American command emphasizing aspects of drivers' behavior that aroused legitimate concerns, and survivors saying, often, that they were doing nothing threatening. Since few of the incidents are ever formally investigated, many families are left with unresolved feelings of bitterness. American and Iraqi officials say they have no figures on such casualties, just as they say they have no reliable statistics on the far higher number of civilian deaths in the fighting that began with the American-led invasion nearly two years ago. But any Westerner working in Iraq comes across numerous accounts of apparently innocent deaths and injuries among drivers and passengers who drew American fire, often in circumstances that have left the Iraqis puzzled as to what, if anything, they did wrong. The confusion arises, in most cases, from a clash of perspectives. The American soldiers know that circumstances erupt in which a second's hesitation can mean death, and say civilian deaths are a regrettable but inevitable consequence of a war in which suicide bombers have been the insurgents' most deadly weapon. But Iraqis say they have no clear idea of American engagement rules, and accuse the American command of failing to disseminate the rules to the public, in newspapers or on radio and television stations. The military says it takes many precautions to ensure the safety of civilians. But a military spokesman in Baghdad declined in a telephone interview on Sunday to describe the engagement rules in detail, saying the military needed to maintain secrecy over how it responds to the threat of car bombs.

You begin to see how the Iraqi's might find it difficult to know what the procedures are then...

Basman Fadhil, 29, a taxi driver interviewed Sunday in Baghdad, described driving home to the southern Doura neighborhood on Jan. 13. The power was out, as it often is in the capital, and the streets were very dark. He was only a block or so from his house when bullets shattered his windshield. "I thought it was thieves trying to steal my car, so I drove faster," he said. One bullet struck him in the shoulder, causing him to crash into a concrete barrier. Getting out of the badly damaged vehicle, he staggered a few steps until American and Iraqi soldiers began yelling at him from the darkness not to move. When he asked the soldiers why they had shot at him, Mr. Fadhil said, they told him there had been gunmen in the area shortly before.

Well, that's a good reason...

Ms. Sgrena and her companions were not the only Western civilians to have come under American fire, according to a series of unclassified government reports that receive extremely restricted circulation, copies of which have been made available to The Times. The reports outline at least six incidents since December in which American troops have fired on vehicles carrying Westerners in the area around the airport. The reports chronicled one incident in January at a checkpoint near the airport road when an American soldier fired at a car even though it was moving slowly and the driver was holding his identification card in plain sight out of the window. The soldier finally waved the car away and forced it to drive down the wrong side of a road.

In early February, a private security company carrying Western clients was fired upon by American troops on the airport road itself. "This is the second time in three days," the report on the incident noted. Later that month, a Western contractor approaching a checkpoint at roughly five miles an hour after dropping off a passenger at the airport heard gunfire, assumed he was coming under attack by insurgents and tried to speed away. But the fire turned out to have been from American troops, who fired warning shots, then hit the passenger side windshield, forcing the driver to stop, climb from the car and put his hands in the air.

Nice to know that five miles an hour is enough to get you warning shots...

One of the starkest incidents in recent weeks occurred on the evening of Jan. 18 in the town of Tal Afar, a trouble spot west of the city of Mosul, where a platoon from the 25th Infantry Division was on a foot patrol. Chris Hondros, a photographer for Getty Images, an American photo agency, said that soldiers of the Apache company were walking in near darkness toward an intersection along a deserted commercial street when they saw the headlights of a sedan turning into the street about 100 yards ahead. An officer ordered the troops over their headsets to halt the vehicle, and all raised weapons. One soldier fired a three-shot burst into the air, but the car kept coming, Mr. Hondros said, and then half a dozen troops fired at least 50 rounds, until the car was peppered with bullets and rolled gently to a stop against a curb. "I could hear sobbing and crying coming from t he car, children's voices," Mr. Hondros said. Next he said, one of the rear doors opened, and six children, four girls and two boys, one only 8 years old, tumbled into the street. They were splattered with blood. Mr. Hondros, whose photographs of the incident were published around the world, said that the parents of four of the children lay dead in the front seat. Their bodies were riddled with bullets, and the man's skull had smashed.

As most of these are reports are from Westerners, hopefully their version of events would carry more weight with ye sceptics than the 'terrorist' Iraqis

Put these "poor old GI Joe's" on a pedestal if you want, call them national heroes if you want; whatever helps you to justify their presence in another country.

But at the same time, accept that they have been responsible for the deaths of many, many civilians.

Accept that the procedures for handling traffic are not that great, at the very least.

Therefore consider the possibility that the Italian's are quite right to be indignant about this.

Normal Iraqi's are equally indignant and it happens to them much much more often - but the US doesn't record civilian casualty figures, Western media rarely gives the incidents coverage and any disgruntled Iraqi's are marginalised as insurgents and thus their views are not taken seriously.

And just to put a human face on it, because its so easy to gloss over civilian deaths in Iraq: The kids left behind after their parents were killed in the incident described above. And of course, when they grow up and hate the US they'll be reported by US media as more 'terrorists' and the fact that they may have a valid reason for hating America will never be mentioned.

The situation is not as simple as you make out Wellard - American troops can, and do, make mistakes - this event may well turn out to have been one of them.


Many edits, sorry.

[ 03-07-2005, 08:31 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]