The Dallas Morning News April 19, 2002
Friendly fire more visible as war casualties decline Canadian deaths in U.S. bombing are part of perennial problem
By RICHARD WHITTLE
WASHINGTON - The four Canadian soldiers killed and eight wounded in Afghanistan in an errant U.S. bombing are only the latest victims of a problem that has plagued militaries since firearms were invented.
"Friendly fire," as the military calls accidental attacks on its own or allied troops, famously took the life of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. One of his soldiers shot him by mistake during the Civil War battle of Chancellorsville.
But incidents of friendly fire have become more visible in recent conflicts, experts say, because U.S. and allied casualties have been so low.
"You're getting to the point where fratricide is becoming a major contributor to total killed-in-action," said John Pike, director of the defense think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
Pentagon officials said Thursday that an investigation was under way into why a U.S. F-16 pilot bombed the Canadians. Initial reports indicated the pilot thought the troops, who were engaging in live-fire training at night, were shooting at his plane.
The victims were members of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group.
"Military experts have always warned about the fog of war, meaning the confusion that inevitably occurs when adversaries are trying to kill each other," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute. "Mistakes are made because any amount of delay can result in your own death."
The incident occurred near Kandahar, where U.S. and allied troops have established a base.
President Bush called Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien to "express my sorrow and sympathy at this tragic accident," he said in a written statement.
The Canadian leader said that while the incident "appears to have been a terrible accident, clearly there are many questions that the families, and all Canadians, expect to be answered."
Mr. Chretien and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Canadian officers would assist in the U.S. investigation of the incident, the fourth involving friendly fire since the military campaign in Afghanistan began Oct. 7.
On Dec. 5, friendly fire felled three special forces soldiers and seven Afghans north of Kandahar. They were killed when they called in an air strike on an enemy position but, apparently because of a failed battery, the global positioning system device they were using transmitted their own location to the B-52 that responded.
Five U.S. soldiers were wounded Nov. 26 near Mazar-e Sharif by shrapnel from bombs dropped by an F/A-18C Hornet as it attacked an enemy position.
And Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the Afghan campaign, said recently that fire from a U.S. AC-130 gunship, rather than enemy fire, may have killed one U.S. soldier and several Afghans on March 2.
All those incidents remain under investigation by Gen. Franks' Central Command, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
U.S. commanders, meanwhile, say they have killed hundreds - perhaps thousands - of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.
"Our forces are getting so good in combat that the bad guys are just not able to kill very many of them," Mr. Pike said. "It's not so much that the rate of fratricide is going up as it is that the rate of deaths from hostile fire is going down."
On one night during World War II - July 9-10, 1943 - 23 U.S. troop transports carrying paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division were shot down by American forces in Sicily who mistook the planes for German bombers.
The death toll in that single friendly fire incident was 410. But about 300,000 U.S. servicemen died in World War II.
Fratricide killed 35 of the 146 Americans who died in the 1991 Gulf War - 24 percent.
To date in Afghanistan, friendly fire has been responsible for the deaths of three or possibly four of 14 Americans killed in action - more than 20 percent.
Other accidents, including helicopter crashes, have killed 23.
The Gulf War incidents led the Pentagon to invest in research and development of high-tech sensors and other gear to let friendly forces identify themselves to each other.
Military analyst Mr. Thompson said one question was whether a lack of such equipment contributed to the Canadians' deaths.
"I suspect that if that had been American forces training on the ground, there would have been an easy way of verifying that they were friendly forces," Mr. Thompson said. "By radio or by an automatic beacon, Identification Friend or Foe, as it's called."
"One of the chronic problems of the post-communist period has been that America has bought a lot of hardware that its allies have not."
The Canadians were in an area designated for training. Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd said the "questions obviously would be: If it is indeed a training area that's regularly used, are the pilots briefed on this before takeoff? Are there positive controls for dropping bombs in that area?"
But the "one overriding principle," he said, is that U.S. forces have "the right to defend themselves ... if they feel they're in danger and being shot at."
Copyright 2002 The Dallas Morning News
