The Daily Background
| Pentagon grudgingly allows limited release of secret friendly fire tape; Misconduct questions intensify
by Arlen Parsa
After the highly publicized leak of a secret cockpit video depicting American Air National Guard pilots firing on a British convoy in March 2003, the Pentagon has grudgingly reversed its earlier decision to keep the tape secret. The incident resulted in the death of one British Lance Corporal, and the wounding of another.
No one involved was ever reprimanded and the relatives of the deceased soldier’s family have been trying to find out the truth of what happened for four years now.
A Pentagon spokesman told the press today that an internal secret investigation of their own had concluded that the two Air National Guardsmen engaged in the incident “followed the procedures and processes for engaging targets.” At one point in the videotape of the incident, leaked to the British newspaper The Sun yesterday, one Guardsman sensed that they had done something very wrong, saying “Dude, we’re going to jail.” His prediction turned out to be inaccurate.
As part of an inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Matty Hull, a coroner requested all information about the 25 year old British soldier’s death from the British Ministry of Defense. After the MoD claimed there was no videotape of the incident, word of the tape’s existence was leaked to the press, creating headlines in late January.
After the Ministry refused to release the video footage, claiming that the Pentagon would not let them, the coroner had all but given up his attempts to get to the bottom of the incident, citing lack of cooperation among authorities. After the video was leaked in its entirety to The Sun, Pentagon officials have now grudgingly said that they will allow British investigators to view their copy of the videotape, but only when a Ministry of Defense official is present in the room.
A small gesture, considering the alleged cover up which lasted for years. The British press is fiercely reacting towards their government, demanding explanations. The coroner reportedly does not think much of the concession, and has suggested that he doesn’t need the official version of the tape, since the leaked version is adequate.
“This material is now in the public domain, and that means that it can be used in the Matty Hull inquest,” he told inquiring media today. The Sun had previously promised to provide the coroner with a copy of the tape if the government continued to refuse to provide it.
Despite Pentagon claims that the no Americans acted improperly in the friendly fire incident, some have doubts. The Sun today published an article in which it claims to have identified several key mistakes made by the Air Guardsmen involved. Among the mistakes the paper claims the Guardsmen made, were failing to obtain permission for an air strike, and strafing the British convoy twice while having “doubts [about] its identity.”
Other mistakes include failing to properly inform their commanders of the region in which the two pilots were operating in. Both Guardsmen mistakenly identified regulation orange markers on top of the convoy vehicles (which identified them as “friendly”) as rocket launchers. Media reports from 2003 also indicated that one of the vehicles in the convoy had a “20-inch wide Union Jack emblem,” which would seem to have made it obviously a British convoy.
“Looks like we got orange panels on them though. Do we have any friendlies up in this area?” one pilot asks his commander on the ground. He is told that there aren’t any allied forces in the area he asked about. It turned out later that he wasn’t actually in the area he was asking about. “You are well clear of friendlies,” the pilot was told.
The same standard orange markers were used on all British forces at the time. The pilots seem unsure as to what they are, calling them “the orange things on top of them” at one point. They eventually conclude themselves that they must be orange colored rocket launchers.
The two pilots, whose identities have not been made public, also seemed to be in somewhat of a rush, according to a transcript of the video. “We need to think about getting home,” one pilot identified as a Major says. The other pilot says he has an enough fuel to stay out longer, and the first reminds him “Yeah, I know. I’m talking time wise.”
“I think killing these damn rocket launchers, it would be great,” the second pilot responds, seemingly judging whether or not they could fit in a good deed before returning to their aircraft carrier. “Get him – get him,” the other pilot says later, egging the first one on.
[…] Unlike certain other situations when the Pentagon and the British Ministry of Defence have worked together to cover up friendly fire incidents where Brits were shot at and killed by Americans: After the highly publicized leak of a secret […]