MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 9A
Iraqi TV shows captured troops
The Associated Press
DOHA, Qatar — Looking by turns frightened or stoical, five captured U.S. soldiers were thrust in front of an Iraqi TV microphone and peppered with questions yesterday. The footage also showed at least four bodies.
U. S. officials confirmed that 12 soldiers were missing after Iraqi forces ambushed an army supply convoy around An Nasiriyah, a major crossing point over the Euphrates northwest of Basra.
The scenes of interrogators questioning four men and a woman were broadcast by the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera with footage from state-controlled Iraqi television. Each was interviewed individually. They
spoke into a microphone labeled "Iraqi Television."
A senior defense official said the Pentagon did not know precisely how many captives there might be, and declined to identify the unit involved so as not to panic soldiers' families.
Al-Jazeera quoted unidentified Iraqi officials as saying the Iraqis are using a defensive tactic of falling back, allowing their enemy to overextend itself and become vulnerable to attack behind the lines.
President Bush, returning to the White House from Camp David, said he did not have all the details of what he called a potential capture but added: "We expect them to be treated humanely, just like we'll treat any prisoners of theirs that we capture humanely.
i not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."
Speaking on CBS, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld charged that if those seen on television were indeed coalition soldiers, "those pictures are a violation of the Geneva Conventions."
International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Nada Doumani said the showing of the prisoners on TV violates Article 13 of the Geneva Conventions, which says prisoners should be protected from public curiosity. But she stressed that the priority at the moment is to get access to them.
"It does contradict the conventions because it's public curiosity," she said. "But our priority is not to put blame on any side but to check that the prisoners are safe."
'Friendly fire' incident kills two
The Associated Press
CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar Coalition forces suffered their first confirmed "friendly fire" deaths of the Iraq war yesterday, when a U.S. Patriot missile battery downed a British fighter jet near the Iraqi-Kuwait border, killing the two flyers on board.
Military analysts said the downing was rare, since the Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 would have been outfitted with a transponder — an electronic signal device identifying itself as a coalition military aircraft.
The shootdown was a blow for Britain, which already suffered 14 dead in accidents: the crash Friday of a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter that killed eight and a collision Saturday of two British Royal Navy helicopters that killed six.
Five American servicemen were killed in those incidents as well.
The Tornado was returning from operations in Iraq when it was targeted by a U.S. Patriot missile battery, the British military said. The Royal Air Force base at Marham, in Britain, confirmed the two crewmembers were dead.
Over Iraq, the fighter had been taking part in strikes that destroyed Republican Guard forces outside Baghdad, U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said in Qatar.
"I have to say it is not the beginning that we would have preferred," Group Capt. Al Lockwood, spokesman for British forces in the Persian Gulf, said.
But, he said, "this is not training, this is war. And we expect tragically, occasionally that there are accidents."
In military parlance the phenomenon also is known as "blue on blue," or "fratricide"—the mistake that sends missiles, bullets, bombs or artillery shells hurtling in the wrong direction, inflicting casualties or damage on noncombatants or one's own forces.
Every modern war has recorded its share of such incidents. In the 1991 Gulf War, the last time U. S. troops fought the Iraqis, 35 Americans were killed by friendly fire—nearly one quarter of the total of 148 combat deaths. In that war, too, several British troops were killed by errant U.S. fire.
As warfare has become more reliant on precision-guided weapons, the likelihood of such incidents diminishes. But even if the technology were foolproof which it is not — the humans who use it remain vulnerable to mistakes.
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