Our battle to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people continued apace today, when an F-16 dropped a 500lb “smart” bomb on the wrong house, killing 14 Iraqis, 7 of whom were children. It should be noted that the army is claiming that only five individuals were killed, but the fact they are willing to apologize at all suggests to me that the owner of the house, who is the one claiming the higher figure, has the truth of it.
The house in question was part of a “cordon and search” operation to catch some nameless insurgent lead in the area south of Mosul, and the U.S. military is claiming that the bomb had in fact been intended for a different target nearby. Well, gee, I guess that makes it all better: “We didn’t mean to incinerate your family on the basis of some flimsy lead, sir. We’d actually meant to incinerate the family across the street, instead.”
The army’s real response wasn’t a whole lot better: it “deeply regrets the loss of possibly innocent lives.” The children were possibly innocent?
I understand that war is hell, and that mistakes happen, but wasn’t this supposed to a “cordon & search” operation? Or has “cordon & search” become a euphemism for “search & destroy”, in the much the same was as “coercive interrogation” has become a euphemism for torture?
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