Surgical US Air Strikes Killing More Iraqi Civilians
Those who really understand air operations know that there really is no such thing as surgical air strikes. So called surgical air strikes in Iraq are now killing civilians at increasing levels.
There are many things that can go wrong with so called surgical air strikes. One is the obvious fact that the weapons systems themselves may malfunction in some way. When released at altitude the missiles or bombs don’t have to be off course by very much, just a fraction of a degree will do it, to miss their intended target and take out another. So it is not too difficult to have a situation like the one that recently occurred in Baghdad when missiles fired at suspected insurgents from a US attack helicopter went off course and instead of hitting their target damaged a nearby Iraqi hospital and destroyed several ambulances.
A fairly common mistake is faulty intelligence. Reports come in that insurgents are hiding out in house “B”. Unfortunately, that was two days ago and the insurgents helped themselves to the use of the house while the owners were out of town. Now the insurgents are long gone and the Iraqi family who owns the house are back fearfully sleeping in their beds. Then the missiles hit the house. The US military reports mission accomplished, five more insurgents dead. After all, who really knows except the families immediate neighbors.
With the use of laser painted target guidance systems similar mistakes in misidentification can occur. A spotter team sees a group of suspicious men enter a house in a crowded urban area. Sure enough, these guys are the real deal. But they enter one house that looks like a dozen more on the same street. The spotters fix their laser beams on the identical looking house next door. A Jdam bomb released from an F-16 fighter jet is released and the systems work flawlessly. Boom, a direct hit. The house and the family living inside are totally destroyed. Too bad it was the wrong house.
Unfortunately, collateral damage is unavoidable when you are conducting air strikes in tightly packed urban areas. Collateral damage is bad enough even in low population density areas. The killing of civilians is sure to increase as air strikes are stepped up. This is what is happening in Iraq now. The US military is stepping up its use of air power in an effort to keep US causality figures down. The Pentagon wants to have some nice looking charts showing a downward trend in US causalities as evidence that the “surge” and present policies are bringing positive results.
The recent step up of American air strikes has hardly been reported in the American media. But when you really think about it recently there has not been much news coverage of any aspect of the war in Iraq. Except for the likes of John McCain who says we can win the damn thing by the year 2013 if we “stay the course”.
John McCain is either a fool or a madman, maybe both. A ten year war in Iraq? Then at the end what have we won and at what cost? Are we in it to gain a few more military bases that drain us of billions of Dollars every month? Do we really think that the Iraqis and the rest of the world are going to stand by and let us claim all of the oil for ourselves?
How have we managed to get foreign policy so wrong? And how has John McCain managed to get so far off course? Why the Senator probably even believes that as we kill innocent civilians in even greater numbers “surgical” additional air strikes will win us more hearts and minds in Iraq.
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