Posted on 01/21/2007 7:54:21 AM PST by Flavius
Army investigators say that Col. Michael D. Steele, a decorated combat veteran and brigade commander in Iraq, issued improper orders to his soldiers that contributed to the deaths of four unarmed Iraqi men during a raid in May, according to military documents. Skip to next paragraph The Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage »
No charges have been filed against Colonel Steele in the Army’s continuing investigation. But two Defense Department officials said last week that Colonel Steele was formally reprimanded in the summer by Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the former commander in Iraq, for not reporting the deaths and other details of the raid. The action was not made public.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Kill the enemy.....it is simple.
we need to fight this thing like WWII, not like Vietnam.
Kinder, Gentler, Compassionate 'Conservatism' does NOT WIN WARS!!!
Sounds to me like the Commander in Chief is more concerned with giving up our nation sovernty to the Mexcans to worry about the WOT.
the Demomarxists won WWII because they are ruthless. Something we could learn from them.
Any charges against the soldiers?
"Any charges against the soldiers?"
If you read the article, you will see the answer.
They then blamed the chain of command for issuing ROE's that were supposedly too aggressive.
The Army accepted the claim that Steele's orders must have ambiguous or confusing or incorrect, and reprimanded him.
The main problem, of course, is that winning requires extemely aggressive ROE's but the political brasses can't stand the heat from the civilian casualties that are a necessary consequence of the agressive ROE. So what the brass are telling the mid-range officers is, "Do what you have to to win, but don't get caught." It's fundamentally dishonest and will eventualy destroy the moral of the officers and men, just as it did in Vietnam.
In WWII, the enlisted men would have been reprimanded and the officers warned about repeated offenses and that would have been it. Sounds like we could add a lot to he "surge" in Iraq just by swapping uniformed attorneys out with combat forces.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.