03 April 2003
General Describes U.S. Efforts to Minimize Civilian Casualties
(General McChrystal briefs at Washington Foreign Press Center April 3) (940) By David Anthony Denny Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- One of the Pentagon's top military officials briefed the foreign press in Washington April 3 on the U.S. military's efforts to minimize civilian casualties and avoid unintended damage in its targeting process. U.S. Army Major General Stanley McChrystal of the Joint Staff, said that the United States has achieved "unprecedented precision" in its ability to target, which enables it "in most cases, to hit exactly what we are trying to hit, and scale the munition appropriately to the task." That gives the United States the responsibility, McChrystal said, to be more discriminating. Under international law governing armed conflicts, a clear distinction is drawn between combatants and civilians in any war, McChrystal said. "The principle that civilians are protected during operations lies at the heart of the international Law of Armed Conflict," he said. It's a principle that is in conflict with some of the practices of the Saddam Hussein regime, such as the use of human shields, he said. McChrystal said civilian casualties and unintended physical damage are undesired outcomes of conflicts. They occur when protected sites -- religious, cultural, medical, etc. -- are struck. They can also occur when dual-use facilities -- those with both military and civilian purposes (such as communications facilities) -- are hit. They can also happen, he said, as a result of "weapon system malfunction, human error, and the 'fog of war.'" "[A]ny time we get any non-combatants injured or killed, or their structures damaged or destroyed, those are obviously things we want to minimize -- particularly in an operation like Iraqi Freedom, where the intent is, in fact, to protect and help the people of Iraq from the regime, as opposed to hurting them in the process," he said. Nevertheless, civilian casualties and unintended damage do occur, in spite of all efforts made to avoid them. But in the Iraq conflict "every time we have a case, where there is a real, or even a potential case of unintended civilian injury or death, or collateral damage to structures, we've investigated it. And we go back and look at the targeting; we account for every munition that in fact was expended. We look for whether the aim points that we intended to hit were hit, to determine if, in fact, there was, as the result of our targeting, unintended civilian ... casualties or damage, and then we correct the errors as we go," he said. McChrystal said the targeting process itself is designed to avoid civilian casualties and unintended damage. At the beginning of a military campaign, or before any planned engagement, a commander determines those effects he must create on the battlefield to achieve his military objectives. That produces a fairly extensive list of desired effects -- for example, preventing enemy troops from moving to a certain location, or preventing a munitions plant from delivering chemical or biological weapons, he said. "[W]hen those effects are determined, the targeteers will determine how we do that. Can it be done by striking the target? Can it be done by preventing the target from having access -- i.e., rail or road access -- to it? Can it be done by affecting -- preventing -- people who work there from being there? And it will produce a series of targets then that they want to strike" -- a master target list, McChrystal said. "That's really only the first part of the targeting process," he added. Once the target list is produced, it is vetted through a number of members of the military staff, who make a series of decisions. Legal, public affairs and intelligence specialists all will review the list, trying to determine whether the target is really the one which it is assumed to be, whether it's a legally valid target -- whether it's even necessary to be on the target list, he said. Other factors taken into consideration include the probability of non-combatant casualties, damage to non-combatant or protected structures, dual-use facilities and the proximity of human shields, he said. Ways to prevent or minimize civilian casualties or unintended damage include using a smaller weapon to strike the target. A Hellfire missile, McChrystal said, has a much smaller "maximum weapons effect area" than does a 2,000-pound [909 kilograms] bomb. Different fuses can also be used on the munition. A bomb that explodes on contact with a building has a maximum blast effect. However, he said, a fuse that delays the explosion for fractions of a second -- after the bomb has penetrated within the building -- will greatly minimize the area affected by the blast. Other methods to reduce unintended damage include changing the aim points of the attack -- for example, attacking one wall of a building rather than another, or using small munitions to strike two opposite walls, McChrystal said. The angle of attack also can be adjusted to limit undesired effects, or an attack can be timed so that the probability of unintended casualties is low -- for instance, striking a target near a school at a time of day when it is unlikely anyone would be in the school, he said. "All of the targets that we strike, we rate on their potential for collateral damage and make decisions accordingly," he said. "Now, there are high collateral-damage targets struck. There are some targets for which all of the mitigation that we do cannot completely mitigate the potential. And then it's a judgment call," he said. "It weighs the military necessity against the expected outcome." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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