Holy sh*t, what a ****-up

[Apache]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV_16PdWnBo

[Puppywalker]

is it OK for me to watch this? only the good old USA reckon is secret. Shame the Sun don't agree.

[Tallyman]

No wonder the Yanks suffer so many casualties in Iraq. They probably shoot them all themselves. Bunch of $$$$$$ amateurs!!!

[MattF]

What can one say..........

[MattF]

Excerpt from the B.B.C report:

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the pilots and crew "had immediately understood that it was a terrible mistake and they felt immediate remorse for what happened".


Sounds a tad different to how things were expressed on the audio.

[Andy Dawson]

I could say quite a bit, but better not in case the yank secret service shut down the forum for letting the truth out!!

But in the pilots defence, they did ask more than once if it was ok to attack, it's the guys on the ground who really f***ed up. Mind you they didn't have to fire.

Heat of war I guess - though no compensation to those who lost their lives to all the Blue on Blues we've had.

[Spitfire]

What can one say..........

Not as much as two!

[spooky]

thats why there a superpower coz they dont care who they kill aslong as they kill someone

[Apache]

I could say quite a bit, but better not in case the yank secret service shut down the forum for letting the truth out!!

But in the pilots defence, they did ask more than once if it was ok to attack, it's the guys on the ground who really f***ed up. Mind you they didn't have to fire.

Heat of war I guess - though no compensation to those who lost their lives to all the Blue on Blues we've had.

Yep, they did attempt to confirm with the ground several times and I seem to recall they were told 'yes, that's your target'. They were also told there was no friendlies in the area, until just after the second straff when the ground seemed to change their mind.

However, the vehicles had the orange markings, and with air combat it is down to the chap in the cockpit to confirm his target visually, so he has to take responsibility.

I am also surprised that they thought the orange markings were orange rockets!!! I really cant imagine anyone painting weaponry bright orange tbh!

A pretty terrible mistake to make, and one that will live with them for the rest of their lives no doubt.

[TonyN]

War sucks, period.

Its not the first screwed up situation, and won't be the last, and while the Yanks have a pretty poor Friendly Fire record, I'd imagine things look a lot different when your life is on the line everyday, and not sitting in a cosy office watching videos.

[beaufighter]

War sucks, period.

Its not the first screwed up situation, and won't be the last, and while the Yanks have a pretty poor Friendly Fire record, I'd imagine things look a lot different when your life is on the line everyday, and not sitting in a cosy office watching videos.

Absolutely. Gives the Americans a break we need them. There has always been situations in war when situations like this happen and it is unfortunate. As usual the Sun capitalises on some poor s0d's misfortune where maybe they should be thinking of the impossible situations that the troops are under.

[Gamedawn]

I think that, as usual, the thing that comes out of this looking bad is the US government for not letting the inquest see the video. Did anyone else hear the US representative on the radio giving the reason for non-disclosure that they "didn't want to respond to an hysterical newspaper campaign" When you see the video it looks like the result of a break down in communications and that must happen all the time in a war zone.

[DitchCrawler]

Can't be arsed to watch it all again, but when they asked if there were any friendlies in two areas, when they attacked i think it was in a third area.

For me, they were nearly out of fuel & the convoy was on the approach to a village both caused them to rush the decision to attack, helped by the fact they had permission from HQ. From 2000ft it should have been clear the targets were friendlies, the Irac army had no small tanks similar to the ones attacked and at the time the orange markers on the tops of allied vehicles was the ID method used IIRC.

Fog of war, poorly trained pilots, $$$$ intel are all to blame.

Shame, but it happens.

Now, the coverup, thats a different thing altogether

Paul

[Chillitt]

The americans have a battlefield management system that gives pretty much everything a tag like commercial airliners. this means they can track everything in a given area from satelites, pick out the friendlies and zap everything else. great idea, except the british army doesn't have it.

[andrewlee31]

at the end of the day, they are fighting a war. the biggest problem they have in achieving thier goals, im my opinion is too many media people, and too many people will to knock them for every little mistake.

we are all born with 20/20 hindsight. Just leave them to do thier jobs.

Good luck to all the brave souls out there