Reuters March 16, 2003
U.S. Friendly Fire Worry Renewed as Iraq War Looms
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military viewed the rates of Gulf War friendly fire deaths as unacceptable, but the Pentagon has produced few solid solutions to the problem even as American troops prepare for a possible sequel to the 1991 conflict, officials and analysts say.
The Defense Department leadership in 2001 terminated as too costly an Army program to equip tanks and other military vehicles with electronic devices enabling troops to distinguish U.S. vehicles from those of the enemy amid the chaos of war.
The Army now is developing another similar system along with NATO allies, but it is only in the testing stages.
In the absence of such a system, U.S. officials are scrambling to affix combat identification panels, which have a distinctive signature when viewed with infrared technology, on the tanks and other vehicles deployed in the Gulf region.
"We are rushing into the quick-solution type of things," said a defense official speaking on condition of anonymity.
Being killed or wounded mistakenly by troops fighting under the same flag is an age-old worry of warriors. But the crowded desert battlefield of the Gulf War in which a large coalition of nations expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait was particularly conducive to confusion and blunders.
Of the 148 U.S. troops killed in battle in the Gulf War, 35 died in friendly fire incidents. That means that a quarter of American war dead were killed by other U.S. forces. Of the 467 U.S. troops who suffered nonfatal battle wounds in the war, 72 (15 percent) were victims of friendly fire.
The Pentagon calls friendly fire casualties "fratricide."
Analysts said the Pentagon has come up short in providing fresh fratricide safeguards for U.S. troops in the field.
"If you look specifically at what has been done narrowly focused on the friendly fire question, it appears as though not a whole lot has happened," said Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists, who authored a comprehensive congressional report on the Gulf War friendly fire problems.
"There's just going to be an awful lot of finger pointing. They've just really set themselves up for a big one here. I just hope that there is not the orgy of recrimination that is obviously waiting in the wings," added John Pike, director of the GlobalSecurity.org think tank.
"But you can go ahead and write this story now: 'First Gulf War identifies fratricide as major issue; Army launches major technological initiative to solve this problem; program gets canceled in short-sighted, foolish budget-cutting effort."'
'MAKING EVERY EFFORT'
The Pentagon is banking on a comprehensive solution to fratricide through the overall improvement of "situational awareness" of what is unfolding on the battlefield thanks to greater reliance on satellite data and better communications.
"Despite the comings and goings of different programs and how different people interpret that, the broader effort has been sustained and ongoing and continues," said another defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"I don't think anyone's so optimistic to think that we'll ever be able to eliminate the fog of war and the chance of fratricide, but certainly we're making every effort to do so."
The Army spent $180 million to develop the Battlefield Combat Identification System (BCIS) until it was terminated amid concerns about its cost and whether it would work. It was supposed to allow a gunner to make a rapid "shoot" or "don't shoot" decision at the point of engagement.
The Army had planned to put the system in place on tanks and other combat vehicles. Before opening fire on a presumed enemy on the battlefield, a tank equipped with the system would transmit a signal to the target. If the target was another U.S. tank equipped with the system, an encrypted response would come back quickly in the gunner's sight saying "friend."
The Army Communications-Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey now is working with NATO allies to develop a similar system that would allow forces of alliance member nations to identify one another as friend or foe on the battlefield. The United States, France and Britain are set to take part in a key test of the system this fall in Britain.
Pete Glikerdas, a civilian engineer who leads the command's combat identification projects, said the discarded BCIS system paved the way for the emerging NATO system.
"It would have been nice for the program not to have been canceled. But the $180 million did not go wasted," Glikerdas said. "It's unfortunate that we don't have the capability in the field, but it definitely helped the allies to select a technology and make it a NATO standard."
"We go back to the Gulf War 12 years ago, and the level of fratricide was unacceptable," Glikerdas added.
"It's a matter of priorities," Glikerdas said. "When everything goes on the list of what needs to be done, the top leadership decides what goes on the top and what comes pretty close to the bottom. Definitely more things could be done if funding was available."
Oelrich said any military must strike a balance between the care needed to avoid fratricide and needless caution that undermines a military operation.
"To reduce it to zero is impossible. Battlefields are inherently dangerous. There's lots of metal flying through the air. And you're going to make mistakes," he said.
"The problem that you have is that if you're so careful and so cautious that you try to reduce friendly fire to zero, you will so reduce your military effectiveness that you'll start taking more casualties from enemy fire. And that is the fundamental trade-off."
Copyright © 2003, Reuters
