Friendly fire investigations show our war machine at its worst.Īdditionally, the Marine Corps and the Army don’t want to jeopardize the air support they receive from the Air Force. mission in Iraq, neither the Pentagon nor the administration needs more bad press. And now, with all the questioning of the U.S. Friendly fire is extremely embarrassing, and no doubt the Pentagon is in no hurry to advertise its shortcomings. There are several possible explanations for the Pentagon’s glacially slow investigation. Sometimes it seems as if our war machine can do everything but stop.

And yet, as the Nasiriyah case clearly demonstrates, one horrible common denominator remains.

war machine is - how much smarter, how much more nimble, how much more efficient it is in doling out violence. Much has been made of how versatile the U.S. A Marine officer who worked with the Air Force during the 1991 war and orchestrated scores of airstrikes told me, “I’d rather have an Iraqi battalion in front of me than an A-10 overhead.” Four British soldiers were wounded by an A-10 near Basra, Iraq, five days after the Nasiriyah incident. More to the point, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolts - one of the aircraft most frequently called upon to provide cover for ground troops - have been implicated in a disproportionate number of friendly fire incidents in all of our recent wars.Ī-10s killed at least 18 coalition soldiers during the Gulf War, including nine Britons in one 1991 incident that became a cause celebre in the British press.

Storm on the Horizon by David J. Morris