Fog of War: Facing Friendly Fire
Even with all the modern weapons of this war, warriors are still bedeviled by old-fashioned problems.
It happened just this week. In Northern Iraq, a convoy of U.S. Special Forces soldiers and Kurdish allies was attacked by American bombs. Eighteen Kurds were killed and more than 45 injured, including the brother and son of a Kurdish leader.
The weapons fired in this war are supposed to be precision guided and pinpoint accurate. But mistakes still happen. Correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports.
U.S. commanders think a sophisticated American anti-missile battery brought down a fighter plane, killing the pilot. In all, roughly 40 coalition soldiers have been killed by accidents and what’s been called “friendly fire.”
“There have been friendly fire incidents in every war in the history of mankind,” says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
“There are portions of this battle space that enormously complex. Human beings are human beings, and things are going to happen. It has always been so, and it will be so this time.”
The Pentagon has been able to eliminate much of the mechanical error in warfare. Satellite-guided bombs, for instance, can be programmed to hit within feet of a target -- and 12,000 of them have been dropped so far.
But, it’s human error that can’t be eliminated.
Captain Jason Amerine is a Green Beret and knows the price paid when smart bombs go astray.
“It's only a tool that's as good as the people actually using it,” says Amerine.
Amerine was commander of the Special Forces unit sent into Southern Afghanistan in November 2001 to link up with pro-Western leader Hamid Karzai. His mission was to assist Karzai in organizing a rebellion against the Taliban.
He credits their quick success to the role of air power and satellite-guided bombs.
“Those pilots kept my team alive while we were out fighting the Taliban,” says Amerine, who credits their quick success to the role of air power and satellite-guided bombs. “They kept Hamid Karzai alive. If it wasn't for those aircraft, we wouldn't have been as successful.”
By Dec. 5, 2001, they were just 18 miles north of Kandahar, a key city, and just days away from a complete Taliban surrender.
“We knew there was Taliban positions across from us,” says Amerine. “We desired to continue to pound those positions to let them know it was a good idea to leave.”
One of the soldiers traveling with Amerine’s unit transmitted their location and the enemy’s location to a B52 circling above. It was standard procedure…but this time something went terribly wrong. A bomb was programmed with U.S. coordinates and sent hurtling toward Amerine’s unit.
“The bomb actually struck our hill,” says Amerine, who flew through the air and landed on the ground. “It was a mess, carnage. It was the most horrible thing I’ve seen in my life.”
Twenty-three Afghan fighters and three Americans, Sgt. Daniel Petithory, Master Sgt. Jefferson Davis and Sgt. Cody Prosser, were killed. Another 37 were wounded, including Amerine. Luckily, Karzai escaped with just cuts on his face.
“The same day we were bombed, Kandahar sent a delegation to surrender the city to Karzai,” Amerine remembers. “The day we were bombed, our mission had ended."
The accident could have been caused by human error, or as CBS News reported, the problem could have been faulty batteries that interfered with the guidance system.
The military insists mistakes with these bombs are rare. Figures show these weapons are 90 percent accurate. They are unquestionably among the most precise weapons in the history of warfare.
But Amerine and the men in that Iraqi convoy learned tragically that even the most sophisticated weapon has to be aimed by people -- and people make mistakes.