Coroner Says U.S. Friendly Fire A Crime

U.K. Inquest Also Criticizes U.S. Military For Refusing To Cooperate With Investigation

(AP)  A coroner conducting an inquest into a U.S. friendly fire attack that killed a British soldier during the Iraq war said Friday that it was unlawful and criminal.

Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker also criticized the U.S. military for failing to cooperate with his investigation into the incident.

"I believe that the full facts have not yet come to light," said Walker, who has complained that he did not get all the evidence he needed about the U.S. A-10 "Tank-buster" plane that killed Lance Cpl. Matty Hull, 25, in an attack on his armored vehicle convoy.

Four other British soldiers were wounded in the March 28, 2003 attack in southern Iraq.

"The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault," Walker said. "It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it, and in that respect it was criminal."

Walker said, "I don't think this was a case of honest mistake. There is no evidence the pilots were acting in self-defense."

The coroner's verdict is not binding on the United States, which is not subject to British law.

Reacting to the verdict, Hull's widow, Susan, said: "I feel we have been badly let down by the Americans." She also told reporters that "lessons must be learned from my husband's death."

On Thursday, she appealed to U.S. President Bush to release the full text of a military report on the incident.

She said 11 lines of the U.S. military's Friendly Fire Investigation Board report into the incident had been blacked out in a copy supplied to the inquest.

"We have 1,110 lines of evidence from this document — but 11 are blanked out," she said, flanked by her husband's parents and sister outside Oxford's Old Assizes courthouse.

"To President Bush and the U.S. government — we implore you to release the 11 lines and let the coroner have these today, so that our family can feel more satisfied with the transparency of this inquest," she said.

The Hull family says the deleted lines relate to an interview with the ground controller — code-named Manila Hotel — in charge of the two A-10 planes that attacked Hull's convoy.

Staff Cpl. Stuart Matthews, who was serving as a British Forward Air Controller with coalition ground troops in the area of the attack, told Walker that Manila Hotel had not given permission to open fire on the British tanks, which the pilots had mistaken for Iraqi vehicles.

But the Hull family believes that questions he was asked about communications and procedure during the incident have been censored.

The coroner and the British government have repeatedly criticized the U.S. military for failing to cooperate with the inquest. U.S. officials declined to send the pilots involved to give evidence and refused to release a cockpit recording of the attack.

The recording was eventually given to the coroner after it was leaked to a British newspaper and broadcast widely on television.

In the tape, one U.S. pilot says, "We're in jail dude," after realizing his plane's attack was a mistake. The other pilot cries and says: "God damn it."

The pilots from the 190th Fighter Squadron of the Idaho Air National Guard said they could see orange panels on top of the armored vehicles, which were used to identify them as coalition forces. They apparently mistakenly decided the panels were Iraqi rocket launchers.

Geraldine McCool, a lawyer for the Hull family, said the coroner had asked for other evidence, including details of the pilots' training hours and a copy of the U.S. rules of engagement. None of it had been supplied, she said.

Walker has called the lack of U.S. cooperation in the inquest "appalling."

[lesteruk]

Stop trying to come up with excuses. These men were under express instructions from their command NOT to fire unless they had checked back. They didn't check back. I've watched the video as have most people in the UK. After the incident these pilots whinge about what might happen to them. Not a word though about those they've killed.
Over recent years U.S. forces have killed dozens of Brits, Canadians and Italians. A top British TV reporter was shot dead by U.S. forces as he lay in the back of ambulance.
The Brits have not killed a single American.
So let's get back to the core question. Do you want Britain as an ally? If so will America do all it can to stop killing British troops? It's simple: Yes? or No?

[gramto7]

If anyone has watched the entire available video, These two guys try numerous times to get an identity on the trucks on the ground. They are told that no coalition forces are in the area. In that case, they are correct in firing. Just seconds AFTER firing and blasting the convoy, they are given orders to hold fire as there ARE coalition forces around.

[lesteruk]

ToolMangler

Are you questioning the right of a British coroner to find out the reason why a Briton died?
There have been some spitefully anti-British comments on this page, one of the them since removed. So the questions are to the American people simple: Do you want Britain as an ally? If so will you do all you can to prevent the killing of its troops?

[toolmangler-2009]

zootallures2 I am so sick of your drivel leaking all over these pages. If I had a head like that I would keep it zipped in my pants. Come back when your mind quits puking then maybe you might make sense.

[toolmangler-2009]

Walker said, "I don't think this was a case of honest mistake. There is no evidence the pilots were acting in self-defense."

Ihis is such B.S. Why is a single foreign coroner being given such license to slander the pilot of these planes without having talked to them. If he doesn't have the facts straight he should KEEP his mouth shut. If this was not a mistake then it was cold blooded murder. I would not blame the Pilots if they sued the UK for slander, and personally I think they would win...

[zootallures2]

LesterUK, "We always thought that U.S. championed openess and decency."

You probably think we went to the moon too. Or think those space probes are real. They are just staged, computer generated, or pitures from the hubble. If you could actually, totally leave the earths atmosphere without the vehicle being fried like aluminum in a microwave, why wouldn't the UK have done it by now?

The U.S. is a giant never ending TV comercial and fantasy show. The Germans made a documentary and were shocked at the real poverty around 50% live in. Or how completely staged the presidents visits to natural disasers are. They spend more on the presidents background than on helping the victims.

[grazinggoat]

defintion of war crime:

a) Offense.%u2014 Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the PENALTY OF DEATH.

(b) Circumstances.%u2014 The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).

link to article of Haditha, Iraq's Massacre;

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/15/60minutes/main2574973.shtml
(please see Continued...)

[grazinggoat]

...Continued

(c) Definition.%u2014 As used in this section the term %u201Cwar crime%u201D means any conduct%u2014
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or
(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.

[rheola-2009]

Lesteruk.

All that you say is very true, except that De- Havilland and Airbus also have a similar expertise to Boeing.
However the number of friendly fire episodes, overwhelmingly invoving U.S soldiers, going back to at least Vietnam, appear to show a defiency in either training or the general physche of the average U.S soldier.

[lesteruk]

The United States has given the world so much - not least safe air travel. Each time something went wrong in the skies Boeing worked on its designs to ensure such disaster never happened with its aircraft. That's American expertise. A similar approach can be used to cut deaths by friendly fire. Indeed it already has. Britons and Canadians never kill U.S. troops - it's always, always the other way round. At one stage in the first Gulf War Briton was losing more men to U.S. forces to than it was to the Iraqis. Britain and Canada aren't the only allies to have suffered.
It has come as a severe shock to many in the UK that its main ally does not have full public inquiries into the death of its own troops and that it witholds so much information from its public. We always thought that U.S. championed openess and decency. Very, very sad.

[Razzl]

The transcript of the flight recorder clearly indicates the actions of the pilots were not criminal in nature. However unhappy citizens on both sides of the Atlantic are with the Bush administration it isn't the place of a civilian coroner to be writing international law and we aren't going to serve up our troops to a politicized kangaroo court process in a foreign jurisdiction. If the Blair government feels there is criminality involved in the incident they can forward the facts to our government to handle through our court-martial process.

[rohink-2009]

Give me a break. Why don't we as a country just commit mass suicide? That would surely solve all the worlds problems. Wouldn't the world be better off without us?

Friendly fire is tragic but to call it crimminal.

[lars008-2009]

Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison: You American haters bore me to tears, Ms. Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old Cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We over-tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-cola bottles. Europe was a growing brothel long before we came to town.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057840/quotes