>>> On 1 April 2003, the Los Angeles Times print edition ran an article headlined "US Accused of Reckless Gunfire," about the killing of a British soldier by an American pilot. Reader Evan Garcia wanted to link to the article from his blog, The Scope, so he looked for it online. What he found was a much shorter version of the article. This is a red flag. If anything, a newspaper will run a shorter version of an article in its print edition, where space is tight and every paragraph has to pull its own weight--and it'll run the full, uncut version on its Website, where room is limitless. To do it the other way around makes no sense.

The headline had also been changed. No longer was the US being accused of anything, much less something as serious as "reckless gunfire." On the Web, the British were mad about something the US did, something having to do with "fire." (Why shorten "gunfire" to the vague "fire" for the Web version, when the online headline can be as long as desired?)

The Web version cuts two and a half paragraphs from the middle of the print article, and chops the final seven paragraphs. The middle paragraphs are the most crucial. In them we learn several things:

1) The pilot made one pass over the British light tanks, turned around, and strafed the tanks on his second pass, resulting in one death and two injuries.

2) The tanks had large Union Jack emblems on them.

3) The soldiers frantically waved at the pilot as they ran away, trying to get him to notice that they were Englishmen, not Iraqis.

4) There were a total of five or six US planes, but only one broke off to mow down the Brits with a Gatling gun.

5) A British survivor said the lone-wolf pilot had gone "on a jolly."

But none of this made it into the Web version. Garcia wrote to me: "I emailed the LA Times' Reader's Representative [on 1 April], and he wrote me back saying that he had no idea why an article would be cut for the website, and he asked the website editor to contact me--still hasn't replied yet." As of 20 April, Garcia still hasn't received a reply.

print version

U.S. Accused of Reckless Gunfire

British troops are angry over a tank incident last week near Basra that left one dead. Pentagon defends efforts to avoid 'friendly fire' deaths.

John Hendren and William Wallace

Apr 1, 2003

Pentagon officials defended their efforts to avoid "friendly fire" deaths Monday after a wounded member of the British Royal Marines related a tale of what he said was an American "cowboy" pilot who opened fire on two British vehicles, killing one soldier.

The sight of the American A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft should have been a relief to the British soldiers who were sitting nervously in their two Scimitar light tanks Friday, watching as Iraqi villagers approached, waving white flags. According to the British soldier, the American pilot came in low, with a rattling noise that sounded like antitank gunfire from his plane's seven-barrel Gatling gun.

"I believe he was a cowboy," a furious Lance Cpl. Steven Gerrard told the Times of London two days later from his hospital bed aboard the British ship Argus. "There was a boy of about 12 years old. He was no more than 20 meters away when the Yank opened up. There were all these civilians around. He had absolutely no regard for human life."

Gerrard, Lt. Alex MacEwan, 25, and trooper Chris Finney, 18, suffered shrapnel wounds and burns. Lance Cpl. Matty Hull, 25, was killed.

The British troops were outraged, and their anger became public when their unit commander broke the ground rules of silence by reminding some observers of an incident in which an American pilot killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Relations between U.S. and British forces were already strained because of an incident in the first days of the war in which a U.S. Patriot battery shot down a British fighter jet. The Pentagon has not yet designated the strike against the Scimitars as a friendly-fire attack.

Of the 26 British troops killed to date, Hull was the fifth killed by his own side and the third killed as the result of American ordnance. Two airmen died in the Patriot attack, and two soldiers were killed by a British tank. None of the 44 American deaths in the war have been the result of action by coalition forces, Pentagon officials said.

The British troops were on a reconnaissance mission 25 miles north of Basra and did not know whether the Iraqis coming toward them intended to surrender or ambush them, MacEwan said.

The American pilot, whose name has not been released, made two passes over the scene from what the British soldiers said was about 150 feet above the ground. He began firing from about 1,500 feet away, they said, turning the two Scimitars into flaming metal skeletons as their ammunition exploded and diesel fuel burned. Hull, who could not escape from his vehicle, was killed on the second pass.

British soldiers said the pilot apparently missed seeing the 20-inch wide Union Jack emblem on their vehicles, as well as the frantic waves of the fleeing soldiers.

"This one had broken off and was on his own when he attacked us," said Gerrard, describing how the A-10 pulled away from a formation of "four or five" other American strike aircraft. "He's just gone about on a jolly .... He's killed one of my friends, and he's killed him on the second run."

Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that defense officials were saddened to hear that the British soldier's death may have been the result of friendly fire.

"We have made trememdous strides in technology in the past everal years, but the battlefield remains a dangerous and often confusing place," Whitman said.

Estimates of friendly-fire deaths in modern warfare range from 10% in World War I to 24% in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Among improvements made since the 1991 war are digitized command and control systems that give troops in the air and on the grund a better picture of where allied and enemy soldiers are, and the expanded use of satellite-guided weapons--from 30% in 1991 to 70% today, officials said.

On Monday, the British government said it would investigate the performance of a new electronic identification system designed to enable British and American weapons systems to recognize each other.

"It is absolutely the saddest tragedy that any of us can experience," U.S. Air Force Gen Richard B. Meyers, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the BBC. "I don't ever accept that [friendly-fire deaths] are inevitable, and I don't think we should ever stop trying to find means to prevent that from happening."

British military spokesmen echoed the sentiment, saying that friendly fire is tragic but inevtiable on a battlefield bristling with armor and ammunition.

"A great deal of effort has been made to reduce those risks," British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons on Monday. "But sadly, these kinds of accidents will occur, particualrly during high-intensity conflict."

[article ends]

Web version

U.S. Fire Angers British

Troops are upset at what they describe as a 'cowboy' pilot who turned his guns on them near Basra, wounding two and killing one.

John Hendren and William Wallace

Apr 1, 2003

Pentagon officials defended their efforts to avoid "friendly fire" deaths Monday after a wounded member of the British Royal Marines related a tale of what he said was an American "cowboy" pilot who opened fire on two British vehicles, killing one soldier.

The sight of the American A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft should have been a relief to the British soldiers who were sitting nervously in their two Scimitar light tanks Friday, watching as Iraqi villagers approached, waving white flags. According to the British soldier, the American pilot came in low, with a rattling noise that sounded like antitank gunfire from his plane's seven-barrel Gatling gun.

"I believe he was a cowboy," a furious Lance Cpl. Steven Gerrard told the Times of London two days later from his hospital bed aboard the British ship Argus. "There was a boy of about 12 years old. He was no more than 20 meters away when the Yank opened up. There were all these civilians around. He had absolutely no regard for human life."

Gerrard, Lt. Alex MacEwan, 25, and trooper Chris Finney, 18, suffered shrapnel wounds and burns. Lance Cpl. Matty Hull, 25, was killed.

The British troops were outraged, and their anger became public when their unit commander broke the ground rules of silence by reminding some observers of an incident in which an American pilot killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Relations between U.S. and British forces were already strained because of an incident in the first days of the war in which a U.S. Patriot battery shot down a British fighter jet. The Pentagon has not yet designated the strike against the Scimitars as a friendly-fire attack.

Of the 26 British troops killed to date, Hull was the fifth killed by his own side and the third killed as the result of American ordnance. Two airmen died in the Patriot attack, and two soldiers were killed by a British tank. None of the 44 American deaths in the war have been the result of action by coalition forces, Pentagon officials said.

The British troops were on a reconnaissance mission 25 miles north of Basra and did not know whether the Iraqis coming toward them intended to surrender. The American pilot, whose name has not been released, made two passes over the scene from what the British soldiers said was about 150 feet above the ground. He began firing from about 1,500 feet away, they said, turning the two Scimitars into flaming metal skeletons.

Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that defense officials were saddened to hear that the British soldier's death may have been the result of friendly fire.

[article ends]

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