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Subject: British soldier in Iraq describes coming under attack from Americans
AdamB    1/30/2007 1:59:12 PM
Why is it than when it comes to fighting wars the Americans are so useless and the British are so much better? The British can tell the difference between an enemy and a friendly army. US warplanes hit British tank convoy in Iraq, inquest told By Emma Henry and agencies 30/01/2007 A teenage soldier awarded the highest British honour for gallantry has described the terrifying moment when his tank convoy came under fire from American planes in Iraq. George Cross holder L/Cpl Chris Finney, 19, said he had been driving the lead Scimitar tank in a convoy of four away from Basra in southern Iraq on a reconnaissance mission, when the two A-10 tankbuster planes struck on March 28, 2003. He told the Oxford inquest into colleague L/Cpl of Horse Matty Hull's death that he did not know at the time these were American planes until he saw one lining up to fire for a second time. L/Cpl Hull's widow listened in tears as L/Cpl Finney said said: "At first there were sparks everywhere and the vehicles stopped, they obviously had been stopped by something. I couldn't actually see what had hit us or where from. He said he reversed back on the instructions of the commander and into the tank carrying L/Cpl Hull, 25, of Windsor, Berkshire. He said as he jumped out of his tank, he tried to grab his rifle but a fire inside the vehicle forced him back. He said he realised that there were still people inside as he took cover. He said: "I was looking around me and couldn't really see. I then looked back at my vehicle to see my gunner trying to get out." Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said the gunner was suffering from a large leg wound. L/Cpl Finney, then a trooper with just one year's experience in the army, pulled him out of the burning vehicle and began to give him medical treatment. As he did so, he was aware that a type of smoke used by coalition forces to indicate a friendly fire incident had been released by one of the tanks in the convoy. He said: "From where I was I wasn't aware that it was a plane or anything like that. All I knew was our vehicles had been hit and the smoke had been deployed. "I was still with my gunner on the floor at this point and the plane came back into view to start its second run." The inquest heard that he himself had been hit in the arm, but he was only aware of his arm shaking and did not realise he was injured until later. He told Mr Walker that he went back to L/Cpl Hull's tank to try to save whoever was inside, but fierce flames forced him back. Mr Walker told him: "I should just like to say, Mr Finney, that you are an extremely brave man and are to be commended for what you did, because it seems to me that had you not taken the steps that you did to move your gunner away from this incident then his injuries may well have been significantly more than they were." L/Cpl Hull, from Princes William and Harry's Blues and Royals, the Household Cavalry Regiment, died at the scene and his remains were left in the tank until they could safely be recovered the next day. telegraph.co.uk
 
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Yimmy       2/2/2007 10:14:53 AM
I don't think any legal action should be taken against the pilots - but if it is found that they were in the wrong (and lets face it, we all know they are the ones in the wrong in one way or another), I think it should be such established and an effort made to learn from their mistakes.
 
I don't have good enough eye-sight to fly, but can well imagine a British Scimiter looking much like an Iraqi BMD from a distance up high.
 
Surely we should be putting all we can into "Blue force tracking", and fully digitise and link the battlefield.
 
In the shorter term, perhaps we should issue A10 pilots with bino's?
 
 
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perfectgeneral       2/2/2007 2:32:05 PM

It will be interesting to see what the coroner has to say, not to mention other witnesses - will the FAC be called?

 

Can coroners issue supoenas? Will he invite USAF witnesses?  I'll bet the US Embassy is in attendance at the hearing.

 

And frankly the biz about difficult to identify targets is very iffy, a single pass error might just be excusable in the 'fog of war', depending on the weather conditions.  But a second pass?  I'd guess this is going to be a key matter for the coroner to decide whether its misadventure or unlawful killing.  If its unlawful killing can the pilots be extradited to face British justice?

The coroner has adjurned the inquest until the diplomats can agree a deal to de-classify the in cockpit video from the relevant A10 'warthog'. Initial inquiries as to viewing such a video were met with: There is 'catagorically' no such video. The bloke's family are most upset and offended.

 
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Yimmy       2/3/2007 9:03:03 AM
Why is it secretive in the first place?  There are dozens of such videos from cockpit cams on the internet.
 
The enemy were not even involved in this instance.
 
 
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Panther    Follow up   2/7/2007 1:28:57 AM
 
 
Whatever the underlying issues relating to the US "friendly fire" on British forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the glee with which The Sun today published the A-10 cockpit video and transcript is evident.

It is a worrying demonstration of the nascent anti-Americanism in the British media, as is the
highly tendentious article by Sun "defence editor" Tom Newton Dunn, purporting to offer an analysis of the video.

As is often the case, one of the
commenters, noting that the pilots twice got confirmation from the forward air controllers that there were "no friendlies" in the area where the attack was made.

For once, shadow defence secretary Liam Fox, interviewed on BBC Radio 4's PM programme today, got it right. "It is easy for us to pontificate," he said (demonstrated more than adequately by
The Times) "… there was confusing information on the ground and in the air … it wasn't as if there was an intent to harm British servicemen."

Listening to the radio exchanges between the pilots and their controllers, and watching the video, one can only conclude that this was one of those tragic mistakes that happen in war. In hindsight, it could have been prevented, but these things do happen.

But what is even more worrying is the evident strain of anti-Americanism within the British military that is brought to the fore by incidents such at these. At the time of the incident in April 2003,
The Telegraph gave a platform to L/Cpl of Horse Steven Gerrard, the commander of one of the Scimitar vehicles attacked. He said, of the A-10 pilot who attacked the convoy: "He had absolutely no regard for human life. I believe he was a cowboy."

Speaking from his hospital bed on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Argus in the Gulf, he had added: "There were four or five aircraft that I noticed and this one broke off and was on his own when he attacked us. He had just gone out on a jolly."

Then today, we get from
Sky News Online the views of a friend of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, the soldier who was killed by the American pilot.

He told Sky News Online: "They murdered a very good friend of mine and should be made to pay a price." Identified only as Tom, he added: "I'm not surprised the Americans are trying to worm their way out of this… The US admit nothing because they live in their own world and don't care about anyone but themselves."

This, as we have pointed out recently (
here and here) can so easily translate into an entirely unrealistic sense of superiority about our own forces, and an unhealthy refusal to accept that our allies have anything to teach us.

On a darker note, there is some speculation as to who precisely released the A-10 cockpit video to The Sun, with suggestions that the hand of the MoD is detectable.

That may or may not be a slur but, as the Coroner's inquest into the death of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull descends into a lurid soap opera and the media move into the all too familiar feeding-frenzy mode, this has completely diverted attention of the
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eldnah       2/7/2007 10:34:41 AM
A tragedy occurred, so it seems an honest and reasonable the analysis and discussion should ensue. What exactly happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen and most importantly how can it be prevented from happening again? Then the question can be asked was anyone, protocol, equipment, tactic etc. the cause. It is appears the analytical intervening steps were ignored by the Media in it's desire to blame the pilots and by implication the United States and of course George Bush.
We have two countries that despite common traditions and language have different training, doctrine, protocols and equipment are working together in the complex environment of mobile combined arms warfare. In the "Best of all possible worlds" there would be no errors but to be surprised or outraged that such occur is at best disingenuous. Tragedy and negligence are not the same thing although it is often politically expedient to consider them so. I would have been instructive if each Media commentator included a line or two describing their combat experience to put their expositions in perspective.
 
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AdamB       2/8/2007 1:45:44 PM
BUSH'S THE RINGLEADER IN WILD WEST HORROR
 
The Mirror
Brian Reade
08/02/2007

"WE'RE IN JAIL, DUDE... AAAAAAAAGH... GODAMMIT... F***... GOD, F***ING S**T... THIS SUCKS."
 
WORDS used by US Air Force pilots after they had attacked L/Cpl Matty Hull's marked convoy, either through poor training, woeful judgment, or a gungho desire to play with their shoot 'em up joy-sticks.
 
Words which show a lamentable lack of professionalism and maturity.
 
Words which will surely make future generations ask why British servicemen were forced to fight America's war for oil alongside the juvenile cast of the cartoon show South Park?
 
Well, did those American pilots sound any different from Cartman and Kenny?
 
Didn't the Pentagon basically slap the same disclaimer on footage of L/Cpl Hull's death that appears at the start of every South Park episode: "The following programme contains coarse language and, due to its contents, should not be viewed by anyone."?
 
And how many times over the years, when "friendly fire" has taken out their own, must air traffic controllers have yelled: "Oh, my God, they killed Kenny... Bastards."
 
There is nothing funny about Matty Hull's tragic murder but my, how the Yanks have added a comic slant.
 
According to US Central Command, it regrets this tape going public in case "it gives the enemy a glimpse of our capability".
 
Capability? To what? Kill for the sake of killing. A spokesman for Matty Hull's Household Cavalry colleagues says that they are glad this tape has come to light, because it shows "the Americans are cowboys".
 
[color=red]And the facts at the time of his death back up the slur. In 2003 alone, American friendly fire claimed 16 British servicemen, five American and an ITV camera crew. A bus full of Syrian workers was blown up, and 33 Kurds were murdered in their village. And it was nothing new. During the first Gulf War, 24 per cent of American deaths were caused by their own guns.
 
Who can forget their slaughter of the Afghan wedding party, or the 64 Albanian refugees killed on tractors as they fled Kosovo?[/color]
 
That's before we count the thousands of Iraqis wiped out by the Washington doctrine of Minimum Lethal Force. A phrase as bizarrely contradictory as healthy corpses. Or friendly fire.
 
But maybe we should ask the question: what came first, the cowboys or the cowboy state? Look at the Commander-In- Chief, who ordered troops into battle with no legal reason and no clear objectives other than to kill for revenge in some mythical war on terror.
 
Remember when George Bush said that al-Qaeda members were wanted dead or alive and compared his battle with Osama bin Laden to a Wild West shoot-out?
 
How, when he announced on TV that he had ordered the carpet bombing of Iraq, he was caught off-mic, saying: "Ah feel good." Remember how he greets his faithful, trigger-happy pardner-in-crime with the words: "Yo, Blair!"
 
I can just imagine Bush phoning up Downing Street after another deadly calamity and saying: "Yo, Blair... God f***ing s**t... This sucks."
 
And I can only pray that, one day, Yo Blair yells back: "We're in jail, dude... aaaaaaaagh."
 
 
mirror.co.uk
 
 
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DropBear       2/8/2007 2:09:23 PM
You're right.  We would have done a hell of a lot better than the Americans and Australians did.  Be probably would have BEATEN that poverty-stricken, Third World country, which is something that you couldn't do.

What absolute muppetry of the highest order!
Go do some reading into the Australian involvement in Nam and the abilities of our forces to pacify and secure the areas we were involved in. You obviously haven't got a clue.
 

 
 
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Heorot       2/8/2007 3:46:31 PM
For those of you who want to see the video, it is here:

ht*p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kebG_eHLD4




 
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Yimmy       2/8/2007 5:15:36 PM
Interesting video.  They really do use informal chat over the local net don't they.

"We have to go home dude"

"Yeah I know, we're fucked"...


 
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displacedjim       2/8/2007 10:28:41 PM
Whoever Brian Reade is, he's a crap-spewing moron.  If that A-10 pilot was a "cowboy," what does that make the hundreds (thousands) of pilots in WWII who struck friendlies?  There's basically no way anyone could make an issue of this incident without them either being ignorant of air support or else having an agenda behind their comments.  Panther's post was right on target, and I'm glad to see there are some Brits who understand.
 
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