It is now up to 10, with a lot of them children under the age of 5...what a tragedy. They need to come up with a better checkpoint system...like keeping tanks on the roads and let the cars through after they stop. DD
Probably the main cause of this is those soldiers were not trained to do this task. Different data on the same story. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2904911.stm William Branigin of the Washington Post says the vehicle contained 15 people, of whom 10 were killed and two seriously injured. He also reports that soldiers at the checkpoint failed to fire warning shots in time. "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!" the paper quotes Captain Ronny Johnson as telling his platoon leader.
The BBC and MSNBC links contain substantially the same info, so it's a corroborating link. re: Colin Powell quotes. Will had a little something to say about this guy. http://slate.msn.com/id/2078437/
A new tactic - haven't seen any corroborating evidence from an embed or soldier yet, tho. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63045-2003Mar31.html "During daylight hours, two vehicles rapidly approached the Marine checkpoint at a high rate of speed," he said. "When they failed to stop, having been signaled by a Psychological Operations loudspeaker team present at the site, they were taken under fire by the checkpoint. The lead vehicle, a sedan, immediately halted, and the second vehicle, a truck, rear-ended it. An adult male, an adult female, and two children exited the sedan. "Two Iraqi soldiers exited the truck with weapons and one of the soldiers shot and killed the adult female," Brooks went on. "After a brief firefight, both Iraqi soldiers and the three surviving civilians lay wounded. As the Marines approached, one of the wounded soldiers pulled out a weapon and was killed on the spot. The Marines evacuated the remaining wounded, and upon searching the truck found 120 millimeter mortars, and mortar ammunition."
Excuse me but I fail to comprehend your logic. I see little difference in shooting out tires on a vehicle coming towards you or headed away from you. The initial function of a checkpoint is to stop approaching vehicles. Are you trying to tell me that a vehicle with 4 flat tires can outrun whatever vehicles are at a checkpoint? Have you ever tried to drive a vehicle with just 1 flat tire? I do not know how many soldiers man a checkpoint, but it would not be an intelligent move to have them all on the roadway and bunched together. It doesn't take an Einstien to have some soldiers slightly down the road. Nothing you have stated negates the advantages of shooting out tires.
Woofer, That is the problem, all this will stop once we win the war and the Iraqi people have their own government. DD
Yeah, it would probably be a lot easier to avoid civilian casualties if all of their military targets weren't in neighborhoods. You would think that if the regime really cared about its people, they would move those targets away from the people. We are fighting a war with a regime that wants its people to get killed...the more civilians that die, the better for the Iraqi regime. I think we've done an excellent job at avoiding loss of civilians for as much ordinance we've dropped.
With news that Iraqi soldiers are forcing men to fight under threat of death to them or their families, has anyone concidered that Iraq is filling cars up with civilians and telling the driver to drive toward a checkpoint. If the driver stops his family will be executed. Of course, the driver knows he's going to get shot but continues driving in order to prevent his family from being shot and to <i>make U.S. soldiers fire on the vehicle killing the other civilians in it</i>. One more tactic to make it look like U.S. troops are arbitrarily killing civilians.
Heard on CNN that some reports are stating that a man was driving the vehicle, but they cannot verfiy this. It would be terrible if this was done on purpose.
Gater, if the truck got only so far as the checkpoint itself and blew up, killing the soldiers manning that checkpoint, that in itself would be bad. They don't have far to go to do damage. Even so, I don't know why they didn't at least try shooting the tires. It couldn't hurt after all.
It really sounds like it was done on purpose. Why would a group of women and children run through a blockade?? Saddam is winning the PR battle here with the rest of the world. The world press, epecially the most viciously anti-american operations out there, will certainly fail to consider the US troops' perspective here and paint them as the bad guys. Truly disgusting.
Exactly. This is Saddam's fault for using cheap war tactics like suicide bombers. I feel the lives of the U.S. Soldiers are more important that the lives of the Iraqi civilians. That may be direct and harsh, but the goal is to win the mission, and we can't have Saddam's human shields act as a roadblock.
JV - Perhaps I'm not stating very clearly what I see in my "minds eye". Envision a vehicle approaching a checkpoint. Now envision 2 to 4 soldiers downroad and on both sides of the exact stopping place. Gunfire from a prone (and/or bunkered) position at a 45 degree angle to the road (to not jeoparodize others on the opposite side) could be easily performed from a distance safely beyond the reach of most car bombs. As far as those manning the checkpoint, I do not see any additional bomb risks from a vehicle which has been slowed down via flat tires and is moving away from them. They would have the same amount of risk as with a rigged vehicle which was stopped. You can't search either stopped vehicle (compliant or flat tired) without some degree of closeness and the related risk.
Wow what a shock. Man turns himself in says Iraqi forces take his family hostage and force him to blow himself up at checkpiont. He also says the husbands of the women and children that were killed earlier were take hostage and the driver was ordered to speed through the check point. So lovethisgame what have yougat to say now you fool.
Woofer, I don't see any problem there: The first quote (16 months ago) is denying bin Laden's caring for the people of Iraq. The second quote (present) is affirming the link between bin Laden and the state (i.e. Saddam's regime). Bin Laden can be linked with Saddam and give lots of money for the development of WMD yet have no regard and not give a dime for the welfare of the Iraqi people. There's no contradiction there. The writer is jumping to conclusion to fast. So are you.
