Posted on 01/06/2003 8:58:36 AM PST by quidnunc
The U.S. fighter pilot who dropped a bomb on Canadian troops in Afghanistan had been told to expect heavy concentrations of Taliban fighters in the area and was warned they could be equipped with anti-aircraft weapons.
The Citizen has learned that in a written statement taken four hours after the April 17 accident, Maj. Harry Schmidt said he had been told in a briefing that at least 2,000 Taliban were in the area southeast of Kandahar and were expected to receive anti-aircraft weapons from Iran to defend against coalition aircraft.
The Taliban had won allies in the area by successfully exploiting discontent over a poppy-eradication program that wiped out lucrative, but illegal, heroin operations, Maj. Schmidt said he had been told.
But it was not Taliban he saw when he first reported muzzle flashes on the ground. Canadian troops were conducting a live-fire drill on a firing range southeast of the Kandahar airport — a fact the pilots were never told about.
After his initial sighting from 21,000 feet, Maj. Schmidt says he banked his F16 into a hard turn to leave the area, but came back because he believed the ground forces were shooting at his lead pilot, Maj. William Umbach.
Maj. Schmidt requested permission to fire his machine-gun "long enough for my flight lead and I to egress successfully," he wrote.
The request was denied, but Maj. Schmidt thought he was still being fired at with a BM-21, a rocket-launched anti-aircraft weapon. The rounds appeared to be burning out around 10,000 feet — well below the pilots' estimated altitude of 15,000 feet to 18,000 feet — but he believed it was still a threat to both him and Maj. Umbach because of the projectiles' speed and height.
Maj. Schmidt declared self-defence and dropped a laser-guided bomb that killed four Canadians and wounded eight. Moments after the bomb struck, he was told by air controllers to "disengage, friendlies, Kandahar."
In his statement, Maj. Schmidt, 37, says that he believed the area was an active pocket of enemy activity and never expected friendly forces to be training in the area. "Friendlies executing live fire in a hostile zone and in the vicinity of friendly airplanes is unsatisfactory, adding to the fog of war," he wrote. "I did not possibly believe they could be friendlies. Otherwise, I certainly would have come off and held the weapon."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
In his statement, Maj. Schmidt, 37, says that he believed the area was an active pocket of enemy activity and never expected friendly forces to be training in the area. "Friendlies executing live fire in a hostile zone and in the vicinity of friendly airplanes is unsatisfactory, adding to the fog of war," he wrote. "I did not possibly believe they could be friendlies. Otherwise, I certainly would have come off and held the weapon." … Maj. Schmidt claims he "repeatedly requested" more information about allied ground troops and their manoeuvres from the Coalition Air Operations Center (COAC) for more than a month before the accident.
These two pilots are being scapegoated to cover up SNAFUs in both the U.S. and Canadian chains of command.
According to reports, prior to the bombing incident the Canadians had been ordered to cease firing and had failed to do so.
I would be interested to know if the Canadians had even informed anyone in the U.S. chain of command that they would be holding a live-fire exercise that night.
Pure and simple, these two National guard pilots are being sacrificed to save the butts of some career officers in the U.S. and Canadian regular armed forces and as a sop to Canadian public opinion.
It's unacceptable!
The mishap investigation found that they had done so, and that the pilots had been in receipt of that information.
Read-and-initial boards are a BITCH.
Nuts!
You know as well as I do that the White House can't intervene in military disciplinary matters.
For them to do so would seriously compromise the authority of the military chain of command.
It's been reported on FR...the Canadian and US mishap investigations both found that the information hit the R/I board at the squadron.
My dh went to school with one of these pilots, and has only spoken of him as being a man of great character and integrity.
Having great character and integrity doesn't mean he couldn't make a boneheaded decision, which is what he apparently did.
From what I have read the pilots' actions were not unreasonable.
The standard has to be were their actions consistant with those of a reasonable and prudent person in light of their experience and what they knew.
I say they were.
Even if they had been aware of a live-fire exercise anywhere in the area would there be any reasonable expectation that any of that fire would be coming up in their direction?
Why would any friendlies have occasion to shoot into the air?
The only people having aircraft were on our side.
If there was any bone-headedness it was on the part of those who decided to do a night-firing exercise with tracer rounds in a combat zone in the vicinity of hostile forces and those up the chain of command who approved it.
But two boards of inquiry, one Canadian, one led by the U.S. air force, found that the pilots were reckless and should have simply left the area if they thought they were being fired upon.
Right, at the first sign of hostile resistance abandon the mission and just bug out!
The time was that this was called cowardice in the face of the enemy and the culprit was stood up in front of a firing squad.
That was before the days of airplanes that could cover 10 miles in one minute, and coalition military operations.
Our officers are deputies of Zeus; they must handle their ability to dish out death and destruction with care. These guys apparently did not do so.
I was taught it as a last-ditch method for marking our positions to friendly air at night during my time in the USMC.
Generally, if you have the luxury of time to carefully evaluate the application of lethal force, you should do so. These guys did not use the time they had available for such efforts, and the price tag was four dead Canadian soldiers.
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