As much as I believe the Iraqi government is capable of all manner of atrocities, please remember the simple fact that while an AGM-88 HARM can hit an object on the ground because it was homing in on it, it can also: be tracking a moving target that turns off its emitter, causing the missile to make a best guess which can be wrong; the missile can fail and strike the ground some place besides where it was supposed to; or the missile can be misfired, out of launch parameters, meaning it will attempt to hit its target, but be unable. I have no issue with the pilot firing the weapon, and I recognize that civilian death, collateral damage, will occur, but to assume the only reason the missile hit the target is that the Iraqis were masking radar in a civilian gathering leaps to convenient conclusions while ignoring the all too real possibilities for failure on the battlefield.

-Ran

This was already posted on TCP. My comments from the last time still apply:

I also wouldn't put it past the Iraqi intelligence officers if they had gone to another site, retrieved a piece of a HARM and brought it back so they could threaten an old guy's entire genetic bloodline if he doesn't "come forward" with the piece and a fabricated story. After all... why did it take so many days for this to be revealed?

Fine point about relocating the debris... that scenario works no matter whether the missile worked as advertized or not.

Regarding the HARM. Anything can break, but the HARM does have backup intertial guidance.

During the Vietnam War, the SHRIKE, the HARM's predecessor, was often fooled by having radars turned off. The HARM is able to compensate for that.

Expecting the underequipped Iraqis to defend their city by putting all their targetable equipment out in the open, for easy picking off by the vastly superior US military (400 billion dollars annual military budget against 1 billion dollars) is like asking them just to turn over the keys of Baghdad to the invaders. Of course they will try to conceal their weapons wherever they can. Their tactics are no different from those used by the Americans in their war of independence from the British.

That post about a war crime being "proved" over at blogs of war was nonsense. Just idle speculation.

1) Weapons misfire all the time. An
article yesterday estimated 10% of
of our smartbombs are expected to
go astray. Batteries can fail.
That was in fact a major fraud
scam years back.

2) Operator error may input the
wrong freqs into the HARM.
(speculation on my part
from info at globalsecurity.)

3) US Military advised journos that
HARMS may seek their sat phones.

Assuming it was a HARM, we don't know what if anything was radiating in the marketplace.

So this is just signs of idle rumor mongering and speculation. Irresponsible and shouldn't be repeated.

Keep in mind your "1)" is a Janes estimate. The article specifically stated it was a guess based on observation, because the Pentagon does not release the data. Janes probably has a good guess since its their job, but who knows which side their error is on. We probably hear about many more misses than hits given Iraq and Al Jazeera's inclinations. I'd venture the guess is shy on the error side. Also from this and other stories it seems the 10% is NOT to be applied to HARM missles accuracy but GPS guided JDAMs and Tomahawks (see the story).

Re: Anna Plurabelle's comment...am I to assume that flagrant violations of the laws of war are OK if one side is sufficiently disadvantaged? There is no doubt that the Iraqis are grossly outmatched, it would seem to me though, that this is a result of their choice to go to war rather than surrender. What is not acceptable is to put civilians at risk by placing weapons in an unlawful proximity to said civilians.

The tactics you refer to as being similar to those used by the colonies against the British in the 18th century...what bilge. We didn't use civilians to sheild us from British forces, we didn't kill POWs, and we certainly didn't make use of suicide bombers and fire on troops after surrendering. This is the sort of nonsense that Robert Sheer is peddling over at the LA Times, and quite frankly it strikes me as intellectually bankrupt. The laws of war are limited, imperfect, true...but they are there to protect combatants AND civilians, the latter of whom are put at risk by this sort of thing.

Are we to assume that we should now tell Saddam (and future targets of the American military) that 'anything goes', just so long as they feel that they are outmatched? After all, this line of reasoning suggests that 911 was a legitimate response to American political/military/economic/etc domination of the world...

Is this truly what you are advocating?

Re: "There is no doubt that the Iraqis are grossly outmatched, it would seem to me though, that this is a result of their choice to go to war rather than surrender. What is not acceptable is to put civilians at risk by placing weapons in an unlawful proximity to said civilians."

What you say is perfectly logical. But put yourself in their shoes, if possible. Would you surrender your home and your city to an invading force? The Iraqis don't believe they are guilty of anything; after all, no WMD has been found. What you are asking them to do, essentially, is surrender to the will of the US just because the US is so powerful. Many of them would rather die than do so. Is that so hard to understand?

Remember, the Iraqis have no air force and almost no defense against attacks from the air. If they put all their defensive weapons out in the open, they will have nothing left with which to resist. They are like a cornered animal. As the victims of an unjust invasion, they can be expected to use every means open to them, including what you would call terrorist attacks. (But it was not the Iraqis who attacked the WTC etc., contrary to popular ignorance.) The people of Baghdad are armed, and will use sniper attacks etc. on the invading forces, with complete justification. You'd do the same in similar circumstances. Isn't that what the NRA is all about?

"They are like a cornered animal"

A poor cornered animal. With big eyes.

As for the rest of Anna's comments, it's still April 1 even on the east coast.

Re: "As for the rest of Anna's comments, it's still April 1 even on the east coast."

See, even the dates are American-centric. It's April 2 where I sit.

Good arguments, though. Pretty hard to dispute what you say.

//we didn't kill POWs//

The charge "no quarter" was issued by both the British and the Americans fighting battles in the revolutions. Being a POW when your captures have no food or medical treat for themselves, is not a good place to be. Treatment of POWs in Civil War was a MAJOR issue during and in the aftermath of the war (eg Andersonville). Let's us not forget the Trail of Tears, either. The US is by no means perfect, the point is we recognize it as unethical, and that's a big step. It is also completely unacceptable now. The argument we've always been perfect only makes us look foolish in the eyes of our enemies and detractors who can look up the facts of history as easily as we can. There are no excuses for Iraqi behavior. We can only hope someday the middle east looks back on this barbaric period with the same disgust that we do now. We beat ourselves over the head for our mistakes in killing civilians. The middle east celebrates in the streets our civilian deaths. The line of demarcation is clear. No excuses for the middle east.

Glenn Reynolds just referenced this specific Command Post post in an interview with Aaron Brown on CNN.

Re: "You'd do the same in similar circumstances." (Anna)

Would we? Facing an overwhelming foe, would you force people to fight by threatening their families or purposely endanger civilians by placing weapons next to their schools? Myself, I would surrender, risking my own life if need be.

Actually Anna, it's a very open question whether the people of Baghdad are armed. The evidence in the rest of the country is that they are not armed. A totalitarian regime does not allow ordinary citizens to carry firearms. It's suicidal by definition. No one is going to allow their children and families to be murdered or taken hostage by government forces when they are armed.

You are, however, absolutely correct that some would rather die than surrender. Though it's also becoming very clear that it isn't Joe Citizen who is eager to defend Saddam to the death...it's his goon squads who are putting up the fight. And again, THAT is understandable given what this regime has done to it's own people. Let's not confuse the ordinary Iraqi with the Gestapo who have nothing to lose any more.

As to positioning of equipment, I cannot argue with you on that. In their position, they've got little choice. But there is something else. If the Iraqi regime was civilized, they would allow civilians to LEAVE the city. It wouldn't matter if AA was put on top of school if all the children and people in the neighborhood were permitted to get out of harms way.

That's not what Saddam is doing. He is forcing civilians to stay in the cities. Look at Basrah. He knows that we are reluctant to hit civilian areas, even when they contain heavy weapons. Do you honestly, I mean honestly, believe that the British government or the American government or even the French government would prohibit civilians from leaving a war zone? That they would shoot people trying to leave (as they've done in Basrah)?

If you believe that they would, there is no further discussion because you see no difference between western democracies and Saddam's totalitarian state.

Hey Tim M, where did you get that bullshit from ie that the Iraqis are forcing other Iraqis to fight at the point of a gun. Do you reckon it's only you that have the moral high ground. The USA has not proved to be much better than any other agressor in world history in these matters and now their actions in taking "non combatants" and spiriting them away to Cuba from Afgahnistan with ill treatment and no legal representation is coming to backfire on them

I think I would tend to agree with Anna's comments on this one. I do not support Saddam Hussein or what he has done in Iraq but I think it is time that the American people realize that war often blurs the lines of what is and isn't morally acceptable. During WWII, the US govt decided that killing ~150,000 civilians in hiroshima and nagasaki was a necessary evil. Was this morally justifiable? I don't think there is any easy way to answer that question. Are the desperate tactics of Saddam's paramilitaries justifiable? Most would say no but what if these were kurdish freedom fighters using the same tactics against saddam. I imagine if most Americans were polled on this question they would say it is justifiable which is of course completely inconsistent.

The fact is that if our own sovereignty as a nation were threatened by an invading force,
I don't think the US military would even hesitate to use WMD. If Iraq or any other country did the same thing in their own defense they would be labeled as war criminals. Of course the likelihood of another country actually "invading" the US is more than remote so it is very easy for us to maintain our position that WMD are "evil" since we never really have cause to use them. That said I have read articles to the effect that the Pentagon is pushing for the deployment of "tactical" nuclear weapons - the idea being I guess that if the warhead is small enough it doesn't really count as a weapon of mass destruction (weapon of fair amount of destruction perhaps?).

Removing Saddam Hussein from power will probably be better for the Iraqi people in the long run but the ends do not necessarily justify the means. I think the moral issues in this conflict are certainly not as clear cut as some would like to believe. We may remove a dictator but at what cost in human life and suffering?

"where did you get that bullshit from ie that the Iraqis are forcing other Iraqis to fight at the point of a gun"

Certainly all the reports about the Fedayeen can't be propaganda, now can they?

BTW, what do you and Anna think about Saddam endangering the history of civilization?