Review of Iraq finds problems with friendly fire

[Barrett808]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military fell painfully short of its goal of equipping its forces with ways to minimize "friendly" fire attacks during the war in Iraq, according to a top general who compiled a "lessons learned" report for the Pentagon.

Too little was done to minimize the incidents of inadvertent attacks by U.S. forces on U.S. or coalition troops, according to Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., chief of Joint Forces Command, which compiled the war review.

Giambastiani testified on the report for the first time Thursday before the House Armed Services Committee. In advance of the hearing he discussed it in an Associated Press interview.

Fratricide is a problem in every war, but after the 1991 Gulf War the Pentagon vowed to invest heavily in new technologies that would reduce inadvertent killings to an absolute minimum.

Giambastiani said in the AP interview that the Pentagon fell painfully short of achieving that goal.

"We've just got to do better," he said. "We've spent a lot of time and money on it since (1991), but frankly we just weren't there. We didn't have it deployed with all our forces, we were doing it at the last minute. It wasn't a good story."

(more)

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0611_BC_Iraq-WarLessons

[Yupster]

1. I wish them luck, but

friendly fire has been a problem in every war we've ever had.

I guess the most famous case was Stonewall Jackson being shot by his own men by accident.

[teryang]

2. They killed and maimed quite a few innocent civilians

They should do some analysis of that problem as well. It is still happening every day.