GlobalSecurity.org In the News

Associated Press
Tuesday, March 13, 2001

Accidental bombing kills six in Kuwait

By Robert Burns

Washington --- A U.S. Navy warplane mistakenly bombed soldiers during a training exercise Monday in Kuwait, killing five Americans and one New Zealander, Pentagon officials said. The Navy F/A-18 Hornet was practicing "close air support" for ground troops at the Udairi bombing range, 45 miles northwest of Kuwait City, when it dropped explosive ordnance "on or near" an observation post, the U.S. Central Command said.

The command issued a statement that there were six confirmed deaths and that five American military personnel were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. Two of the injured were released. An unspecified number of other military personnel were treated at the scene.

The New Zealand government pressed for answers in the death of its soldier, acting Maj. John McNutt, 27. ''It's a terrible tragedy and . . . we are now looking for an urgent, detailed explanation as to how such a training exercise can go so terribly wrong,'' said Defense Minister Mark Burton. ''This was a live bomb basically dropped on observers. It shouldn't happen and we all need to know precisely what went wrong.''

The New Zealand Army said McNutt was killed instantly. U.S. officials said they would not identify the American casualties until their families were notified. The U.S. dead were from the Army and Air Force, officials said, though it was unclear how many were with which service.

The accident came at an especially difficult time for the Navy, which is struggling to overcome the diplomatic fallout from the fatal Feb. 12 collision of the submarine Greeneville and a Japanese fishing vessel off Hawaii. That accident killed nine Japanese and has strained U.S. relations with Japan. The Navy's performance also was questioned after the Oct. 12 terrorist bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 sailors. A review found many security shortcomings, although senior officials concluded that even if those mistakes had not been made, the terrorists still probably would have succeeded.

President Bush, traveling in Panama City, Fla., opened a speech on his budget proposals and military spending with a brief mention of the bombing accident in Kuwait. ''I'm reminded today of how dangerous service can be,'' Bush said. ''We lost some servicemen today in Kuwait in a training accident.'' He led a moment of silence for the soldiers and their families.

The bombing happened at about 7 p.m. Monday in Kuwait, or 11 a.m. EST, about 28 miles from the Iraqi border. The warplane was taking part in a multinational training exercise in which ground forces direct strike aircraft to specific targets. The Hornet was flying from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. An official said the plane dropped what was believed to be a 500-pound gravity bomb. It was not clear whether the pilot erred or whether those on the ground directed the Hornet to the wrong area.

An accident investigation board has been appointed and will arrive in Kuwait this week, the command said. The United States military has operated regularly from airfields and an Army base in Kuwait since the 1991 Gulf War, when a U.S.-led coalition expelled the occupying Iraqi army from the tiny Persian Gulf nation. The continuing presence of U.S. forces in Kuwait is meant as a deterrent to Iraq.

Aircraft from the Harry S. Truman battle group, such as the Hornet involved in Monday's accident, participated in a joint U.S.-British bombing of Iraqi air defense installations around Baghdad last month. The 500-pound Mark-82 bomb is a medium-sized weapon capable of killing a person standing several hundred feet away, military experts said. The gravity-driven bomb usually does not carry an advanced guidance system.

''It is a quintessential plain vanilla dumb bomb,'' said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a Washington-based defense policy organization. ''But it is quite lethal at hundreds of feet. If I was at one end of a football field and one of these things went off at the other end, I would duck.''

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

The bombing in Kuwait on Monday was the latest in a series of deadly accidents in the past year involving the U.S. military.