Can we get some fire discipline in here please??

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-09-12 11:07am

10 Iraqi policeman killed by US troops

Fucking ... TEN. For fuck's sake.

(Two troops killed 7 wounded in seperate firefight elsewhere)

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-09-12 11:18am

Well, damn. It seemed like the shitstorm was finally starting to wind down, and then 10 Iraqis get killed...not by Islamic militants or Saddamites, but by U.S. troops. Shameful.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-09-12 11:21am

Part of the problem is the rules of engagement. Right now the US is opperating under a Shoot First Ask Questions Latter policy. While this might save US lives in the short run, it inflames the situation. Much as the US loathes the idea of peace keeping, they desperately need to train their soldiers how to conduct it. Sooner rather then latter the current US attitudes are going to inflame the situation further.

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2003-09-12 11:54am

The iraqi police were apparently driving an unmarked vehicle. It's likely that the American commander saw two groups shooting at each other, and thought that they were simply two iraqi gangs.

It sounds like the problem lies in a lack of a dispatcher corps for the Iraqi police so that when they do something, the American troops on the ground know about it.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-12 03:41pm

Vympel, it looks outrageous until you read the article. I'm hoping you read the article because this was justified as hell.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Baghdad says it appears there were three police vehicles - one an unmarked pick-up with a rear-mounted machine gun - chasing a fourth vehicle containing gunmen.

Two armed groups run a checkpoint in unmarked, heavily armed vehicles. What the hell do you expect to happen next? For all they knew they could have been Saddam's partisans, militants, terrorists or gangs. They opened fire on what they percieved, and to all appearances was, a threat from armed attackers.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-09-12 03:52pm

Stormbringer wrote:Vympel, it looks outrageous until you read the article. I'm hoping you read the article because this was justified as hell.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Baghdad says it appears there were three police vehicles - one an unmarked pick-up with a rear-mounted machine gun - chasing a fourth vehicle containing gunmen.
Two armed groups run a checkpoint in unmarked, heavily armed vehicles. What the hell do you expect to happen next? For all they knew they could have been Saddam's partisans, militants, terrorists or gangs. They opened fire on what they percieved, and to all appearances was, a threat from armed attackers.

Maybe the American troops were justified to fire at both vehicle,but the Iraqis will not see it that way.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-12 04:08pm

Montcalm wrote:Maybe the American troops were justified to fire at both vehicle,but the Iraqis will not see it that way.

No doubt about it. It doesn't bring those men back to life and it does make things all better. I can't really blame them for the emotional reaction to it. I'm not at all happy about it myself, it's going to make things that much harder and stir up that much more resent.

But I also think the rush to judgement of some of the previous posters is foolish. Had any of them looked at the facts it would have been clear that there was complete justification to open fire and it was just a stupid mistake that turned into a tragedy.

Shiva Archon · Post by **Shiva Archon** » 2003-09-12 06:18pm

Hopefully this tragic blunder will inspire some organization in the security turnover to Iraqi police. Why was the police truck unmarked? Why did US ground troops not know of the chase?

I don't blame the boots, I blame this one on lack of coordination and lack of organization. It's understandable given the rush and regional unrest, but this goes to show that the administrators can't afford to keep making mistakes like this.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-09-12 07:55pm

Unmarked police cars have their place, but it's in surveillance and undercover work. Why the hell was such a heavily-armed vehicle going around without any identification?

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-09-13 05:03am

Iraqi troops are visible and have uniforms- in news reports I haven't seen any marked police vehicles- and I have seen Iraqi cops on pick up trucks, in their distinctive uniforms, with rear-mounted MGs.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-14 12:12am

Vympel wrote:Iraqi troops are visible and have uniforms- in news reports I haven't seen any marked police vehicles- and I have seen Iraqi cops on pick up trucks, in their distinctive uniforms, with rear-mounted MGs.

Which means fuck all when you go through a checkpoint in the middle of a gun fight. Uniforms are good, but it's hard to stop and check the threads in that situation.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-09-14 12:45am

Vympel wrote:Iraqi troops are visible and have uniforms- in news reports I haven't seen any marked police vehicles

I've seen plenty complete with roof lights. They seem to have picked up the technicals post Saddam, probably seized from the local militias.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-09-14 12:52am

Stormbringer wrote:
Which means fuck all when you go through a checkpoint in the middle of a gun fight. Uniforms are good, but it's hard to stop and check the threads in that situation.

Then can you explain why the fire lasted for an hour (despite repeated pleas for them to stop firing), and why some sources say the vehicles were marked?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-09-14 12:56am

Vympel wrote: Then can you explain why the fire lasted for an hour (despite repeated pleas for them to stop firing), and why some sources say the vehicles were marked?

Others say none where, and no ones produced any pictures of the wrecks that I'm aware of. If three unmarked cars, one with a machine gun approach a checkpoint at high speed at night IFF is kind of impossibul.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-09-14 01:01am

Stormbringer wrote:Vympel, it looks outrageous until you read the article. I'm hoping you read the article because this was justified as hell.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Baghdad says it appears there were three police vehicles - one an unmarked pick-up with a rear-mounted machine gun - chasing a fourth vehicle containing gunmen.
Two armed groups run a checkpoint in unmarked, heavily armed vehicles. What the hell do you expect to happen next? For all they knew they could have been Saddam's partisans, militants, terrorists or gangs. They opened fire on what they percieved, and to all appearances was, a threat from armed attackers.

Re-read the quote again.

So playing the quote game we have three police cars, one of which was unmarked ... what about the other two?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-14 01:04am

Vympel wrote:Then can you explain why the fire lasted for an hour (despite repeated pleas for them to stop firing), and why some sources say the vehicles were marked?

Others say they weren't. Until it's proven one way or the other there's no point debating that.

If fire was returned you've got a damned good reason it lasted that long. And the pleas? Who's going to hear that in the middle of a firefight.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-14 01:06am

Crown wrote:Re-read the quote again.

So playing the quote game we have three police cars, one of which was unmarked ... what about the other two?

Unknown and the sources conflicting at this point.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-14 01:10am

Don't the Iraqi police and the US armed forces communicate on the radio in some fashion? Is there no co-ordination between their respective organizations?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-14 01:18am

Darth Wong wrote:Don't the Iraqi police and the US armed forces communicate on the radio in some fashion? Is there no co-ordination between their respective organizations?

Yes. But from what I've read it's far from comprehensive as a lot of the equipment for it was either looted or they didn't have it to begin with. They've got co-ordination but not the kind of comprehensive network police have in the US. And that of course only makes the problem of co-ordination with US troops and other peacekeepers worse. The ties are usually higher up that the individual car level. I mean they're using stuff confiscated from the militias for pete's sake.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-09-16 07:58am

And the fallout:

Iraqi police ready to turn guns on US troops
From Richard Lloyd Parry in Fallujah

Iraqi policemen declared themselves holy warriors yesterday and vowed to take revenge for the deaths of their comrades in the town where ten police and a security guard were killed on Friday in the worst "friendly fire" incident of the Iraq conflict. "I am full of hatred for the Americans and I am ready to kill them," said Arkan Adanan, who was injured in the shoulder early on Friday morning when US troops poured rifle and machinegun fire into three police vehicles that were chasing suspected bandits.

"All Fallujah people are Mujahidin and they care only about killing Americans. We don't care about their powerful weapons, because we know that if we die we will become martyrs."

Survivors of the incident and relatives of the dead and injured men made similar comments.

At a news conference with Colin Powell, the visiting US Secretary of State, Paul Bremer, the US administrator, said: "The very regrettable incident in Fallujah is still under investigation by our military. We have expressed regrets for it publicly.

"When we have reached conclusions about how the incident came about, we'll take appropriate steps. In the past we have paid families where we felt it was appropriate, but this incident is still under investigation."

The apology issued by a US spokesman over the weekend has done little to calm rage over the incident, which many local people claim was a deliberate ambush by the American soldiers. Conspiracy theories are circulating about how wounded policemen were shot in the head by unidentified foreigners allegedly working for the coalition.

"From today, I am a Mujahidin," Anwar Jabar, a policeman whose brother and cousin died in the attack, said. "I have lost two heroes, so why not let it be three?" The Fallujah killings are a grave setback to the US-led coalition, which was already struggling to persuade ordinary people of the sincerity of its intentions in Iraq.

That the incident occurred in Fallujah, already the centre of the country's most violent resistance to coalition authority, makes it doubly disastrous.

The response was swift. An American soldier was killed and three others injured yesterday morning when a Humvee armoured vehicle ran over a homemade bomb.

Passers-by laughed as the carcass of the Humvee was dragged back to the US base on the outskirts of Fallujah a few hours later.

"I am proud of that, because those people are taking revenge on the Americans," Mr Adanan said. "They will continue with more and more attacks in the future."

The establishment of an independent Iraqi police force is one of the coalition's few concrete achievements, but, in Fallujah at least, it now finds itself confronted by an organisation to which it has entrusted law and order.

Mr Adanan said from his hospital bed: "We shouted at them that we were police, but they killed us anyway because they hate us. They hate us because we don't co-operate with them."

The fury against the Americans was deafeningly obvious on Saturday when nine of the 11 dead were buried. For more than an hour scores of men fired thousands of rounds into the air as a crowd of several hundred gathered at a mosque.

Onlookers scattered in alarm as one man fired off a belt-fed machinegun. Several journalists were shoved and slapped as they tried to photograph the crowd.

Speaking through a loudspeaker to the hundreds outside, the imam urged the gunmen to "save your bullets for the chests of the enemy". On a wall along the town's main street, someone had painted the English words: "US Army will pay blood for oil."

Fallujah has always been one of the wildest places in Iraq, with a reputation for violence and feuding even before the US-British invasion. In April US soldiers killed 18 people and injured 78 others during protests.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-09-16 08:24am

Yeah so? it's just a few miles from Baghdad, well in the "IRON TRIANGLE"
of die hard saddamites.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-09-16 08:29am

MKSheppard wrote:Yeah so? it's just a few miles from Baghdad, well in the "IRON TRIANGLE"
of die hard saddamites.

The problem is that these were the police (supposedly on the occupying power's side)- it's shit like this that radicalizes them.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-09-16 08:32am

Vympel wrote: The problem is that these were the police (supposedly on the occupying power's side)- it's shit like this that radicalizes them.

If they want to declare themselves holy martrys, then that's fine with
me, we'll see how well their technicals hold up against 25mm bushmaster
fire

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-09-16 09:53am

It's shit like this that makes me more and more determined to do whatever I can to get rid of Shrubby next year.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-09-16 11:44am

Do you really believe that changing the President is going to magically extricate us from Iraq, and instantly return that country to a liveable state?