Pentagon Challenged On Lynch And Tillman

Taken from The New York Times, April 24, 2007
By JOHN HOLUSHA

Military and other administration officials created a heroic story about the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman to distract attention from setbacks in Iraq and the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the slain man’s younger brother, Kevin Tillman, said today.

Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Mr. Tillman said the military knew almost immediately that Corporal Tillman, an Army Ranger who left a career as a pro football player to enlist, had been killed accidentally in Afghanistan in April 2004 by fire from his own unit. But officials chose to put a “patriotic glow” on his death, he said.

Mr. Tillman said the decision to award his brother a Silver Star and to say that he died heroically fighting the enemy was “utter fiction” that was intended to “exploit Pat’s death.”

Former Pvt. Jessica Lynch leveled similar criticism today at the hearing about the initial accounts given by the Army of her capture in Iraq. Ms. Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital in dramatic fashion by American troops after she suffered serious injuries and was captured in an ambush of her truck convoy in March 2003.

In her testimony this morning, she said she did not understand why the Army put out a story that she went down firing at the enemy.

“I’m confused why they lied,” she said.

Mr. Tillman and Ms. Lynch appeared at a hearing called to examine why “inaccurate accounts of these two incidents” were put out by the administration. Today’s session was part of the Democratically-controlled Congress’s effort to hold the Bush Administration accountable for its conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other issues.

Pentagon officials and military representatives were scheduled to testify later in the hearing.

Ms. Lynch said she could not know why she was depicted as a “Rambo from West Virginia,” when in fact she was riding in a truck, not fighting, when she was injured.

Dr. Gene Bolles, a doctor who treated Ms. Lynch at a hospital in Germany after she was rescued, said that her injuries, while extensive, were not the result of bullet wounds, as first described.

Mr. Tillman’s tone was more bitter than Ms. Lynch’s. He described the early accounts of his brother’s death as “deliberate and calculated lies” and “deliberate acts of deceit,” rather than the result of confusion or innocent error.

For her part, Ms. Lynch said in her testimony that other members of her unit had acted with genuine heroism that deserved the attention she received. “The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideas of heroes, and they don’t need to be told elaborate tales,” she said.

Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, the chairman of the committee, said the hearings were intended to determine the “sources and motivations” for the erroneous accounts and to see whether Administration officials had been held accountable for them.

US Marine's Murder Trial In 'Friendly Fire' Shooting Opens In Rome

Taken from Yahoo News, Apr 17, 2007
BY by Gina Doggett, Associated Free Press

ROME (AFP) - US marine Mario Lozano went on trial in absentia in Rome on Tuesday for shooting dead a high-ranking Italian military intelligence officer in a "friendly fire" case that is far from settled in the minds of many Italians.

The trial was adjourned for technical reasons, at the request of both sides, to May 14.

Lozano's lawyer Alberto Biffani asserted that his client was unaware of the proceedings. The plaintiffs' lawyer, Alessandro Gamberini, said for his part that procedures to seek damages from Donald Rumsfeld, who was US defence secretary at the time of the incident, were not yet complete.

Lozano, 37, is charged with voluntary homicide in the death of Nicola Calipari, as well as two counts of intent to kill Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and Andrea Carpani, a secret service agent who was driving the car fired on by Lozano.

Both Sgrena and Carpani were wounded in the shooting at a mobile checkpoint on the Baghdad airport road on March 4, 2005.

The US military exoneration of Lozano has never been accepted by the Italian government, the source of severe strain between Washington and Rome.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Tuesday that he expected a verdict in the case to "establish how the events occurred and who carries responsibility for what happened," the ANSA news agency reported.

Speaking to Italian journalists while on a visit to Algiers, D'Alema said "all Italian citizens (want) the truth to be ascertained with this trial."

Biffani hailed the adjournment of the trial, which is being held at a maximum security prison on the outskirts of Rome, saying it would "give the defence precious time to study the case."

Public prosecutor Franco Ionta said repeated efforts had been made to notify Lozano of the trial.

"The only response was that for the United States the case is closed," he said, adding, however: "It's unthinkable that Lozano was unaware of the trial."

Franco Coppi, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, accused Lozano of "arrogance" and dismissed the idea that the defendant was unaware of the proceedings as "an insult." Sgrena, speaking to AFP after the hearing, called the assertion "ridiculous."

Coppi questioned how an accused could "remember to name a defence lawyer at the last moment."

A state-appointed lawyer was initially assigned to Lozano, but he retained Biffani early this month.

Lozano, who was indicted in February, broke two years of public silence this month when he told the New York Post that the Italians' vehicle was moving at speed towards his patrol.

"If you hesitate, you come home in a box. ... I did what any soldier would do in my position,"

Lozano told the newspaper. "You have a warning line, you have a danger line, and you have a kill line. Anyone inside 100 metres (109 yards) is already in the danger zone ... and you've got to take them out."

Sgrena alleges that Lozano has been ordered to lie about the chain of events.

The incident occurred near Baghdad airport shortly after Calipari negotiated the handover of Sgrena from kidnappers who had held her for a month in Iraq, where the pro-US government of Silvio Berlusconi had contributed troops to the US-led coalition despite overwhelming opposition at home.

Both sides agree that Lozano fired on the car carrying Calipari and Sgrena with Carpani at the wheel.

Italian ballistics experts concluded that Carpani was driving at a normal speed and that the US unit gave no warnings before opening fire. The Italian probe also found that there were no signposts warning of the checkpoint.

The US military insists that Lozano followed the rules of engagement and that the Italians' car was speeding towards his unit when he opened fire.

The hearing was attended by Calipari's widow Rosa, elected to the Senate last April, and by Sgrena, who told AFP: "The fact that Lozano hired the lawyer is a first recognition that there is a trial."

Both Rosa Calipari and Sgrena are suing for damages.

The case is one of several defence-related issues straining bilateral ties.

An Italian judge in February ordered 26 Americans to stand trial for the kidnapping of Osama Mustafa Hassan, better known as Abu Omar, on a Milan street on February 17, 2003. He was taken to a high-security prison outside Cairo where he says he was tortured.

Still fresh in many Italians' minds is a 1998 incident in which a low-flying US Marines plane cut an Italian ski lift cable, killing 20 people. The United States cleared the pilot of manslaughter.

Coroner Attacks 'Inexcusable' US

Taken from The BBC, 16.04.2007

A coroner has called it "inexcusable" that US authorities failed to release evidence about the first UK casualties of the Iraq war.

Andrew Walker was speaking at the reopening of an inquest into the fatal helicopter crash in March 2003.

The eight servicemen died along with four US marines in Kuwait.

American authorities would not give evidence or provide relevant videotape to the court despite all efforts by the MoD, the coroner said.

'Strenuous attempts'
Mr Walker, Oxfordshire's Assistant Deputy Coroner, criticised US authorities for failing to provide "vital" information during the controversial Matty Hull inquest last month.

In this latest case, Mr Walker told the coroner's court he had been refused permission to use American evidence that would help his inquiry.

Mr Walker said that despite "strenuous attempts by his office and the Ministry of Defence", the US had again said it would not provide any American witnesses to give evidence at his hearing.

"We are again at the beginning of an inquest without the necessary answers to the questions from the US service personnel," he said.

He said the evidence included infrared tape taken by the air mission command aircraft which he believed held radio transmissions before and after the crash.

In addition, footage filmed by an embedded Fox News crew from Fox News was also being withheld, he added.

However, BBC correspondent Jon Brain said the coroner had new information that the images may well be released to the court, after the US authorities had previously denied its existence.

'Cover-up'
Paul Spencer, on behalf of the family of Sergeant Les Hehir, 34, from Poole, Dorset and the 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, who died in the crash, said widow Sharon Hehir found the US's attitude "inexplicable".

Mr Spencer said: "It's a matter of deep regret and anger on her part that the Americans have refused to cooperate.

"It gives the impression of a cover-up."

The coroner told him: "It seems to me inexcusable that witnesses could come to assist this inquest but they are not allowed to do so."

The Special Investigations Branch military policeman in charge of collecting evidence for the coroner, Warrant Officer 2 Philip Jackson, told the hearing that the Americans' failure to reveal more information was "frustrating to say the least".

He added: "I would like to see more openness in disclosure of the American material."

The British victims were all from 3 Commando Brigade based in Plymouth. The men who died were: Royal Marines Colour Sergeant John Cecil, 35, from Plymouth; Captain Philip Guy, 29, from Bishopdale, North Yorks; Marine Sholto Hedenskog, 26, from Cape Town, South Africa; Warrant Officer 2 Mark Stratford, 39, from Plymouth; and Major Jason Ward, 34, from Torquay.

Also killed were Operator Mechanic (Communications) Second Class Ian Seymour, 29, from Poole in Dorset; Sgt Les Hehir, 34, also from Poole; and Lance Bombardier Llywelyn Evans, 24, of Llandudno, north Wales. Lance Bombardier Evans had a younger brother serving in the same unit.

A British board of inquiry report into the tragedy caused controversy when it differed in the findings of the American report.

The UK inquiry by 3 Commando Brigade found that technical failure was to blame. But British defence chiefs endorsed a US investigation which focused on pilot "disorientation".

Friendly Fire Death Was 'Entirely Avoidable', Coroner Rules

Taken from The Times, March 16, 2007
By Philippe Naughton

The widow of a British soldier killed in a “friendly fire” incident in Iraq four years ago said today that she would not be pushing for charges against the American pilot who fired at his convoy even though a coroner ruled that it had been a "criminal" act.

Lance Corporal Matty Hull, 25, was killed in southern Iraq on March 28, 2003, when his armoured convoy came under attack from two US A-10 Tank-buster warplanes. Four other British soldiers were wounded in the incident.

Delivering his verdict on the death, Andrew Walker, the Assistant Deputy Coroner of Oxfordshire, said today: "This was an entirely avoidable tragedy."

Mr Walker also hit out at the US military for its refusal to co-operate with his investigation into the killing. The main piece of evidence considered at the inquest, a cockpit recording of the attack, was only made available to the coroner after it was leaked to The Sun newspaper and widely broadcast on television.

The inquest, at Oxford’s Old Assizes, had heard how the pilot of a US A-10 Tank-buster plane swooped and opened fire on the British convoy from the Royal Household Cavalry Regiment - even though the vehicles were clearly marked with a coalition emblem.

"The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault," Mr Walker said in his verdict. "It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal. I believe that the full facts have not yet come to light."

Lance Corporal Hull’s widow Susan, who has fought a long battle to establish the truth about her husband’s death, burst into tears as Mr Walker delivered his damning verdict.

At a press conference shortly afterwards, Mrs Hull, a primary school teacher, said that she felt "a great sense of relief" at the verdict. "It was what we waited four years to hear," she said.

She said that she felt "badly let down" by the US military, for refusing to cooperate with the inquest even though her husband had been fighting alongside US forces in Iraq as an ally.

Asked about the pilots who carried out the attack, Mrs Hull said: "I hope that they are at peace with themselves and that they can move on with their lives. I'm sure they are feeling remorseful for what they did. I hope so anyway."

But she said that for her the coroner's verdict was "enough truth" and she would not be pursuing her campaign or pressing for legal action or criminal charges against the pilot who pulled the trigger.

"We're drawing a line" she said. "We need to move on. It's been a long time."

Yesterday, Mrs Hull appealed to President Bush to release the full text of a military report on the incident.

She said 11 lines of the US military’s Friendly Fire Investigation Board report into the incident had been blacked out in a copy supplied to the inquest. "We have 1,110 lines of evidence from this document - but 11 are blanked out," she said.

The Hull family says the deleted lines relate to an interview with the ground controller - code-named Manila Hotel - in charge of the two A-10 planes that attacked Hull’s convoy.

Staff Corporal Stuart Matthews, who was serving as a British Forward Air Controller with coalition ground troops in the area of the attack, told Mr Walker that Manila Hotel had not given permission to open fire on the British tanks, which the pilots had mistaken for Iraqi vehicles.

But the Hull family believes that questions he was asked about communications and procedure during the incident have been censored.

Today the Pentagon extended its "deepest sympathies" to Hull's family but reiterated its own finding that the soldier's death was an accident.

“The (US) investigation determined that the incident took place in a complex combat environment, the pilots followed applicable procedures and processes for engaging targets, believing they were engaging enemy targets, and that this was a tragic accident," the Defence Department said in a statement.

In the recording of the incident, one US pilot says, "We’re in jail dude," after realizing his plane’s attack was a mistake. The other pilot, who opened fire, weeps and says: "Goddammit."

The pilots, a major and a lieutenant colonel of the 190th Fighter Squadron, the Idaho Air National Guard, who had no combat experience, say they can see orange panels on top of the armoured vehicles, which were used to identify them as coalition, rather than Iraqi, forces. But they convince themselves that the orange panels are enemy rocket launchers.

The major told investigators later that he was adamant that he did not want to be "the first guy shot down during the war".

Delivering his verdict, Mr Walker said: "I would like to offer my deepest sympathies to members of the family. I have no doubt of how much pain and suffering they have been put through during this inquisition process and to my mind that is inexcusable."

He hit also out at the US authorities’ failure to help his inquiry, saying: "They, despite request after request, have been, as this court has been, denied access to evidence that would provide the fullest explanation to plan out the sequence of events that led to and caused the tragic loss of Lance Corporal Hull’s life."

Mr Walker said that as well as other soldiers being injured in the attack, innocent civilians were "in all possibility" killed and injured.

He said: "The courage and bravery of Lance Corporal Hull and of those in that convoy cannot be underestimated and follow the tradition within our armed forces that we are all justifiably proud of. The determination and courage of the members of Lance Corporal Hull’s family cannot go without mention either."

The coroner said the act was a "criminal one, since the pilots broke with the combat rules of engagement in failing to properly identify the vehicles and seek clearance before opening fire.

"The pilots chose not to take steps to confirm the identity of the vehicles in the convoy - that he could easily have taken," he said.

"The pilot who opened fire did so with disregard for the rules of engagement and acting outside the protection of the law of armed conflict.

"I’m satisfied, having given careful consideration to all the evidence that I have heard in this inquest, that this is a case where I can properly consider whether an unlawful action and manslaughter applies here. I find there was no lawful authority to fire on the convoy."

Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister, expressed frustration at the failure of US authorities to provide witnesses to appear before the coroner.

Ms Harman held several meetings with US Embassy diplomats in London in the hope of persuading them to participate in the inquest.

She told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “I share the frustration expressed by the coroner and lawyers for the family and the family as well, and I regret that I was not able to persuade them.

U.S. Accidentally Attacks Kurdish Outpost, Killing Several

It's been a bad few weeks for the United States with regards to friendly fire. Firstly it has been on the back foot defending itself from its airforce shooting a British soldier and withholding video evidence (luckily the gutter press of Britain - The Sun Newspaper, somehow managed to obtain the video). There is also the case of the US soldier waiting for trail for the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad and who can foregt the death of Pat Tillman and the way his death was dealt with. These are just a few cases where many soldiers have died because of friendfly fire and now there is another one...

Taken from The New York Times, February 10, 2007
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DAVID S. CLOUD

An American military helicopter killed as many as nine Kurdish militia fighters early Friday in the northern city of Mosul when the aircraft mistakenly attacked a guard post.

The guard post protected the local offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the political party of the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani. The attack stunned Patriotic Union officials, whose leadership and militia are close allies of United States forces. They said their base and the surrounding guard posts were well known to the American military in Mosul.

“Everybody knows that it is a P.U.K. base and is used for protecting the main road between Mosul and Erbil,” said Kabir Goran, a senior Patriotic Union official, who added that the guard post was less than a mile from the party offices. “We have daily contacts with the Americans and they have been to the base.”

An aide to Mr. Talabani said he had asked the American military for information about the mistake.

The United States command in Baghdad said American troops erroneously believed that they had identified insurgents near the hide-out of a bomb-making cell linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The command said the strike killed five Kurds, described as policemen; Kurdish officials said as many as nine were killed.

Also on Friday, an insurgent group that has taken credit for several recent downings of United States helicopters released a video that it said showed a missile shooting down the Marine CH-46 Sea Knight transport that crashed Wednesday, killing all seven on board.

But Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a senior officer on the joint staff at the Pentagon, told reporters in Washington on Friday that early indications suggested that mechanical failure had caused the CH-46 crash; he warned against “drawing conclusions from things that are posted on the Internet.”

The American helicopter attack in Mosul struck members of a militia force that is a crucial ally of the United States. The Kurds and their fighters, known as pesh merga, live in mountainous northeastern Iraq, but their control extends west to the Tigris River and Mosul, a city of close to two million. Sunni Arabs make up most of western Mosul, but Kurds dominate the eastern half.

In a statement, the American military said that after observing armed men near the guard post, American troops fired warning shots and called out in Arabic and Kurdish for the men to put down their arms.

An American helicopter then “observed hostile intention” and fired on the guard post. The military statement did not describe specifically what the soldiers saw the Kurdish troops do. But it said that as the helicopter attacked, American ground troops took fire from the bunker.

Kurdish officials said six other pesh merga were wounded, some cared for later by American troops.

In the video posted on the Internet by a group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq, the Sea Knight helicopter, distinctive for its two large rotors atop either end of its long, tube-shaped fuselage, is flying toward the camera. Then it banks hard right as if taking evasive action. After turning a half-circle, an object darts into the screen from the right, trailed by a curl of black smoke. The object comes close to the helicopter, though no impact is visible. But moments after the object enters the frame an explosion rips through the helicopter, which drifts to the ground in flames.

A senior defense official called into question the authenticity of the video, saying that a Cobra attack helicopter was close behind the Sea Knight in the moments before the crash, and that the Cobra pilot saw no sign of ground fire. The official also said the video appeared suspicious because there was no sign of the Cobra in any frame. “It does not show the wingman flying anywhere near the CH-46,” the official said.

The helicopter crash, into an open field near the insurgent-heavy town of Karma, between Falluja and Baghdad in Anbar Province, was the latest of a half-dozen crashes or downings of aircraft over the past three weeks. Military officials are concerned that insurgents have devised new tactics or obtained new equipment that makes American aircraft more vulnerable.

Military investigators suspect that a shoulder-fired missile may have played a role in bringing down an American AH-64 helicopter on Feb. 2, according to a Pentagon document describing possible causes of the recent crashes.

Officials said there had not been a final determination of the cause of the AH-64 crash; no further details could be learned about the evidence suggesting a missile attack. The document noted that the helicopter also might have been struck by fire from a heavy-caliber machine gun.

General Lute said that four of the six helicopters that crashed recently were brought down by enemy fire, but that there was no “definitive evidence that there were missile attacks involved” in any of them. He added that it was too soon to say that attacks on helicopters had increased or that insurgents had adopted more effective tactics.

In addition to the Feb. 2 crash, those brought down by insurgents include a UH-60 that was hit by ground fire on Jan. 20 in Diyala Province; another AH-64 that was shot down near Najaf, on Jan. 28; and a Bell 412 helicopter belonging to an American contractor that was brought down south of Baghdad on Jan. 31, the document said.

Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Baghdad, and David S. Cloud from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Yerevan Adham from Iraqi Kurdistan, and Ali Adeeb, Qais Mizher and Ahmad Fadam from Baghdad.

U.S. Soldier To Be Tried In Italy

Taken from Yahoo News, 07 Feb 2007
By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press

ROME - A judge Wednesday ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial in absentia for the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad, the prosecutor said.

Spc. Mario Lozano is indicted for murder and attempted murder in the death of Nicola Calipari, who was shot on March 4, 2005, on his way to the Baghdad airport shortly after securing the release of an Italian journalist who had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital, prosecutor Pietro Saviotti said.

Another agent, who was driving the car, and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, were wounded.

"This looks to me like the first step on a long road toward truth and justice, and I hope justice will come in the end," said a visibly emotional Rosa Calipari, the agent's widow.

Lozano was not at the hearing and his whereabouts are not known. Judge Sante Spinaci set his trial date for April 17.

According to prosecutors, the judge said in his ruling that Lozano can be tried for "political murder," because Calipari was a civil servant and his slaying damaged Italy's interests.

Italian law does not allow foreigners charged with killing Italians abroad to be tried in absentia unless the murder has political connotations, prosecutors have said in the past.

Sgrena's lawyer, Alessandro Gamberini, said the judge agreed to attach a civil lawsuit against the Defense Department.

Prosecutors so far have not sought the soldier's arrest. Lozano, a member of the New York-based 69th Infantry Regiment, has said through friends in the military that he had no idea the car was carrying the Italians.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there are no plans to make Lozano available for the trial.

"We conducted a very thorough investigation ... involved the Italians ... made available all the information," Whitman said. "As far as the Defense Department is concerned, we and the Ministry of Defense in Italy consider this a closed matter."

The defense had tried to have the case dismissed, arguing that Lozano had merely been following orders.

"I wasn't expecting this, because I think there were grounds for a dismissal because of the fact that he was following orders," said Lozano's court-appointed lawyer, Fabrizio Cardinali.

Sgrena said she was satisfied with the judge's decision. "It was what we have asked for," she said.

If convicted, Lozano could be sentenced to life in prison, said Francesca Coppi, who is Rosa Calipari's lawyer.

The case has strained U.S.-Italian relations. The United States and Italy drew different conclusions in reports on the incident. U.S. authorities have said the vehicle was traveling fast, alarming soldiers, who feared an insurgent attack. Italian officials claimed the car was traveling at normal speed and accused the U.S. military of failing to signal there was a checkpoint.

Calipari's death angered Italians, already largely opposed to the war in Iraq, and the agent was mourned as a national hero.