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October 9th,
2007 - Pentagon is Pressed on Killings of Iraqis |
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Pentagon is Pressed on Killings
of Iraqis Lawmakers, ACLU want records on civilian deaths By Farah Stockman Boston Globe October 9, 2007 Washington - The firestorm
over the Sept. 16 shooting of more than a dozen unarmed Iraqis by members of
Blackwater USA, a private security firm, has sparked renewed calls for the US
military to release its own records related to the killing of Iraqi civilians
at checkpoints or near convoys. Many hundreds of Iraqi
civilians have been killed or injured by US forces for getting too close to
checkpoints or convoys over the past four years, according to US military
documents and officials. Private security contractors
such as Blackwater and US soldiers are authorized to fire at vehicles that
get too close to convoys or checkpoints, after giving a series of warnings
known as "escalation of force." US military officials say
they have launched a successful effort to reduce the number of such shootings
by training soldiers to give more visible warnings, but the Pentagon so far
has declined to release data to back up the assertion. That refusal has
sparked a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking copies of
military reports on such escalation-of-force shootings. Key members of
Congress have also called for the release of the documents. "Without these
documents being released, we don't really know how well the military is
doing," said Jon Tracy, a former judge advocate general in Iraq who now
works for CIVIC, a Washington-based group that seeks to curb civilian deaths.
"We don't know how often this happens, and when it does happen. We can't
know if a soldier reasonably had fear or was the soldier was just
trigger-happy?" Senator Patrick Leahy, a
Vermont Democrat who has been an outspoken advocate of civilian victims in
Iraq and Afghanistan, has renewed calls for the Pentagon to create a
declassified database of civilian deaths. "Such a database would
assist in evaluating the effectiveness of the Pentagon's efforts to reduce
civilian casualties and in determining appropriate compensation for the
victims' families," Leahy said in a statement to the Globe last week.
"It would also help to credibly refute inaccurate claims of civilian
deaths." Military officials who
worked on the effort to reduce civilian deaths say that the information Leahy
and the ACLU are seeking is classified. Military spokesmen reached in Baghdad
said they would release statistics on escalation-of-force killings when they
become available but did not provide statistics for this report. Civilian shootings by
Blackwater and other contractors have come under scrutiny since the Sept. 16
episode. Blackwater has reported involvement in 195 shootings since 2005, 80
percent of which were deemed "escalation of force incidents" in
which Blackwater fired without being fired upon. But contractors are not
required to complete the same rigorous investigations of shootings that the
US military conducts. Initial reports suggest that
the Sept. 16 event was sparked when a driver unwittingly came too close to
the Blackwater convoy and was shot by Blackwater personnel. As the dead
driver's car continued rolling toward the convoy, Blackwater security
reportedly continued to shoot, killing at least 14 people and sparking an
uproar in the Iraqi government and on Capitol Hill. Similarly, hundreds of
shootings at US checkpoints and near convoys have ignited simmering outrage
among Iraqis for years and taken hundreds of lives, although they have not
gotten the attention in the United States that the Blackwater shooting has
received. "Many hundreds are
killed and their cases are not even recognized," said Karzan
Sherabayani, an Iraqi living in London who made a documentary about his
struggle to find out what happened to his 75-year-old uncle, whose car was
hit with more than 80 bullets when he tried to turn around at a checkpoint in
Kirkurk. "I wanted to know if somebody had been given responsibility for
this." Of 500 claims for
compensation filed by Iraqi families and released after an ACLU court action,
133 were allegedly killed for driving too close to a convoy, while 59 were
allegedly killed at checkpoints. Those cases include
allegations that US soldiers, on several occasions, shot at random from
convoys, killing bystanders; a case in which soldiers allegedly fired 200
rounds into a car that did not stop soon enough at a checkpoint, killing two
parents and injuring their two young children; and an allegation that US
soldiers had fired on a car carrying a pregnant woman who was on her way to
the hospital to give birth, killing her. In the vast majority of
cases, soldiers were deemed to have acted within their rights to fire at the
vehicles that they feared posed a threat. Soldiers were found negligent in
only a tiny handful of cases. In many cases, the claims were denied because
the event had not been reported up the chain of command. Military officials say
soldiers are under tremendous pressure at checkpoints and in convoys, and
often have only a few seconds to decide if a vehicle is a threat. Sometimes,
they say, soldiers err on the side of killing an innocent driver instead of
risking death to himself and fellow soldiers. "They are 19, 20 years
old and we are asking them to make some pretty big decisions, and they are
doing a great job," said Colonel Kent Crossley, former chief of Analysis
and Integration at the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth,
Kan., who served multiple tours in Iraq. Crossley cochaired a conference
earlier this year on how to rewrite the handbook on "escalation of
force" procedures in a way that could reduce civilian deaths. He said the military was
trying to give soldiers the tools to avoid such killings, including nonlethal
tactics, and better, more visible signs which can be understood by Iraqis who
do not speak English. "Just because you have
the right to use lethal force, it doesn't mean you should. That's what we are
trying to teach these soldiers," he said. When General Peter Chiarelli
arrived in Iraq as the number-two US military official in 2006, he announced
that every "escalation of force" shooting that resulted in a death
or injury should be investigated and reported up the chain of command in what
is known as a "15-6" report. Within months, the number of
reported checkpoint shootings dropped dramatically, from one per day to one a
week, military officials said, heralding a major success. But in July, the McClatchy
news service reported that the number of "escalation of force"
shootings had spiked with the increase of US troops in recent months, with
429 civilians killed or wounded in checkpoint and convoy shootings over the
past year. External link: http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/10/09/pentagon_is_pressed_on_killings_of_iraqis/ |