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I hear you, freema. I still feel very sorry for women and children and men in Iraq who get killed/maimed in a situation not of their making. But, I want our Marines and Soldiers to come home alive. I'm kind of biased, they come first to me. This is quite interesting...

"Q. Very well. In a circumstance where we have a young Marine facing small-arms fire coming from a house like house one or house two, if these Marines had reported that there was small-arms fire coming from those houses and called in air support and a 500-pound bomb had been dropped on house one or house two and women and children had been killed, after a detached assessment was made, in your professional judgment, and based upon your demonstrated expertise, what result?"

A. Solatia payments.

Q. But no murder charges?

A. No. And that's the very interesting thing. Even under the ROE construct, if you have troops in contact and a close air support mission is flown in support of those troops in contact, one does not even need to do a CDE methodology."

There was a misguided message to Marines at Fallujah in April 2004. At that very time, special mission unit snipers were engaging bad guys who were self-designating as hostiles because they were scurrying from building to building with AK-47's and RPG's. And the special mission unit snippers were engaging them. And somebody told the Marines -- and I am still drilling to find out where this guidance came from, because I have spoken to the Commander and it didn't come from him. But somebody told the Marines, don't fire at these people unless they point or fire their weapon systems at you. As we will see a little further on, I will demonstrate why that is misguided and entirely legally and tactically unnecessary for someone to point or fire a weapon system at you before you would be authorized to engage.

Lord, love a duck! This just floors me! In the hell-hole that was Fallujah for goodness sake!