Another tip of the iceberg in Iraq?

Aaron Mackey of Tuscon's Arizona Daily Star reports on the "friendly fire" deaths in Iraq of Army Spc. Alan McPeek life and Pvt. Matthew Zeimer: Part 1: Chaos, missteps led to soldiers' deaths 02/03/08; Part 2: Questions haunt slain Tucson soldier's family 02/03/08. "Friendly fire" deaths can occur even under the best of circumstances. But incidents like this may well be signs of more far-reaching problems in the armed forces, problems which the Pentagon has largely kept under wraps. The dropping of recruitment standards, the exit of a very high percentage of young officers from the service, indications of serious breakdown in discipline (the practice of torture, careless or deliberate killing of civilians) tend to appear in the news - when they appear at all - as isolated incidents.

Hillary Clinton's phrasing last week caught my attention when she said, in the context of establishing an exit strategy from Iraq as President, that the new administration would be "taking into account all of these contingencies that we're going to have to contend with once we are in charge and once we can get into the Pentagon to figure out what's really there and what's going on. (my emphasis)"

Whatever Clinton meant by the particular phrase, it's very likely that not only in the Pentagon but throughout the federal government, if we have a new Democratic administration in 2009, we're likely to learn about a lot of strange things as "what's really there and what's going on" during the Cheney-Bush administration comes to light. And what we already know if bad enough.

McPeek and Zeimer were killed on 02/02/07 in Ramadi. Mackey summarizes the findings of a 750-page (!) report the Army did on the killings:

They include:

● Allowing an unqualified soldier who had never fired a main tank gun to shoot at what turned out to be McPeek's and Pvt. Matthew Zeimer's position.

● Failing to load enough machine-gun ammo onto both tanks because the soldiers didn't want to open new ammo boxes, which would have required extra paperwork.

● Leaving for the fight without full crews, forcing the tank commanders to move around inside the tank, limiting their ability to focus on the firefight.

● Allowing a tank commander with a documented past of battlefield stress — which had previously relegated him to supply duties — to suit up that night.

● Never resolving miscommunications between soldiers in the tanks and commanders in the outposts under attack, leading tank crews to fire in a different direction from what they had been directed.

The investigation never says fixing the problems would have prevented McPeek's death.

It concludes that the tank crews needed additional training on how to distinguish friend from foe, which they later received.

Although apparently the Army itself didn't officially published the report, Mackey's summary is a reminder of the close-ranks attitude the services have been taking over such events, even in the case of Pat Tillman unconscionably withholding information from Tillmon's family about how he died.

Mackey's summary of the Army findings could be shortened to: stuff happened; nobody's responsible and no problems were found that caused the deaths; the problems have been fixed anyway. But even reading Mackey's account based on the Army's report, the reader has to wonder if we aren't seeing an instance of more widespread problems: personnel with poor judgment; demoralization; eroding command structures; stress producing shoot-first-ask-questions-later responses. For example, Mackey reports:

One tank commander had been assigned to the supply room until a month earlier. He had been in a tank when an RPG killed one soldier and had witnessed several other grisly scenes while in Iraq.

His commander told investigators that he suffered flashbacks and "was kind of a mess" after the incidents.

Commanders had removed the staff sergeant from tank duty to relieve some of his stress, but that morning he was back with the tanks, running a crew he'd never worked with before.

His gunner that night had no formal training on the tank's main gun. He had some experience firing the tank's machine gun, but had never fired a tank shell, in practice or in combat.

He later told investigators: "This was the first and only (main gun) engagement for me in Ramadi, and I was pretty fired up to fire."

The crews loaded into their tanks and prepared to drive toward Eagle's Nest without any briefing or a pre-combat inspection, which was required.

One of the tanks wouldn't start. It had to be jump-started by the other tank before the crews moved slowly toward Eagle's Nest.

This is part of the human face of the McCain escalation, aka, The Surge, over the last year. His account continues, describing the fatal "friendly fire" incident:

The commander of the lead tank, a first lieutenant, asked permission to shoot the main gun.

After clearance, he got ready to fire. But the gunner from the second tank, a specialist who had no training on the tank's main gun, asked if he could shoot instead. He wanted to get into the fight after running out of machine-gun ammo and being "useless," the investigation later detailed.

The lieutenant gave the OK, later telling investigators that he wanted to give the other gunner a chance to shoot before he left Iraq. ...

The tank gunner tried to lock in the building's distance with a targeting laser.

It flashed an error message: Target is too far or too close.

Resetting the equipment, he manually entered 200 meters and fired. (my emphasis)

A 57-page portion of the Army report on the incident, with several passages blacked out, is available at the Arizona Daily Star site. From the Army report's conclusions:

a. (U) The intensity of that morning’s combat, complicated by the degraded three man crews and the AIF positioned directly between the two outposts, caused the temporary loss of situational awareness during the critical moments leading up to the QRF’s one main gun engagement. This engagement, fired by Blue 3 in the early hours of 2 February 2007, was further compounded by the lack of main gun live fire training and minimal other gunnery training afforded the new gunner, as well as the lack of accurate maps, graphics, and fully functioning coaxially mounted machine guns. Finally, the engagement was complicated by the new 3-69 AR RIP/TOA Soldiers on Grant’s roof who were firing east in the direction of the tank section without full situational awareness.

b. (U) The level of combat experienced by 1-1 AD and the combat losses in personnel and materiel over a 14 month period is staggering. During their 12 month, extended to 14 month rotation, the Brigade had more than 600 Soldiers wounded, of which 95 were killed in action and 200 were not returned to duty. They lost 21 M1A1 tanks, over 40 M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and 70 up-armored HMMWVs. This type of combat is indicative of how the enemy fought every move made to enhance peace and stability in this hotly contested province of Iraq. This type of intensive fighting dramatically increases the threat to all those participating in it, as well as increasing the risk of fratricide. Nevertheless, there are actions that can mitigate these situations. The following are some recommended actions that if accepted, can help mitigate the possibility of such a tragic event from re-occurring. (my emphasis)

Despite the defensive and even propagandistic tone ("This type of combat is indicative of how the enemy fought every move made to enhance peace and stability"), the level and intensity of combat is a real concern. Many of our soldiers in Iraq are experiencing what Robert Jay Lifton calls an "atrocity-producing situation", which is especially likely to occur with "an occupying force conducting a counterinsurgency war in which there can be neither victory nor clarity of purpose". (Crimes of War: Iraq; 2006) The Cheney-Rummy attempt to conduct the Iraq War with a "light footprint" has increased the incidence of such stresses on US soldiers there.

Tags: alan mcpeek, iraq war, matthew zeimer, robert jay lifton