A Confession

As many as 13 of the people killed in yesterday's violence in Iraq's capital died when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled and abandoned U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering and throwing stones and firebombs.

...

The military statement said the helicopter did not shoot directly at the crowd surrounding the vehicle because the "air crew could not discriminate between armed insurgents and civilians on the ground."

"The primary mission was to destroy the vehicle," a U.S. military spokesman said. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, the U.S. military, by its own admission, used indiscriminate force, out of proportion to any possible military objective -- a very clear violation of Article 51 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions:

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:

(a) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective;

(b) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or

(c) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:

(a) An attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and

(b) An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Far from the first time the U.S. military has done so. But one of the clearer admissions -- even mirroring the specific language of the Conventions -- of commission of War Crimes.

Update, 9/16/04: The helicopters could have fired rockets from a distance, the officers said, which would have been safer for the crews but more dangerous for civilians.

"If we were not concerned about collateral damage we would have used [this] engagement technique," Major General Peter Chiarelli, the unit's commanding officer, said.

"More dangerous" than being killed, eh? Give 'em points for creativity, won't you?

"The actions taken by our soldiers and pilots were clearly within their rights," said Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, which patrols Baghdad.

In other words, Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli has no fucking idea with what "rights" an occupying power is imbued with regards to the civilian population.

Also: US Gives Conflicting Accounts of Rocket Attack That Killed 13 Dead

Posted by Eddie Tews at September 13, 2004 12:59 PM