[Shotimes] OT : Apache hit

[Firehawk007]

Here's what ABC said about the Apache vid:

Rules of Engagement
Videotape Shows U.S. Helicopter Crew Firing on Suspected Iraqi Insurgents
By Martha Raddatz <mailto:ely.e.brown@abc.com>
ABCNEWS.com

Jan. 9-- Graphic video footage from the gun camera of a U.S. Apache 
helicopter provides a window into the rules of engagement that often 
determine life and death in Iraq.

The video, obtained by ABCNEWS, shows grainy images of three Iraqis on 
the ground handling a long cylindrical object that the helicopter pilots 
believe is a weapon.

The pilots, from the Army's 4th Infantry Division, ask their commanders 
for permission to engage, then take the three men out one by one, using 
the Apache's devastating 30 mm cannons.

Nighttime Scene

The video opens with the helicopter tracking a man in a pickup truck 
north of Baghdad on Dec. 1, one day after the 4th Infantry Division 
engaged in the bloodiest battles with Iraqi insurgents since the end of 
major combat.

The pilots watch as the man pulls over and gets out to talk to another 
man waiting by a larger truck.

"Uh, big truck over here," one of the pilots is heard saying. "He's 
having a little powwow."

The pickup driver looks around, then reaches into his vehicle, takes out 
a tube-shaped object that appears to be about 4 or 5 feet long, and runs 
away from the road into a field. He drops the object in the field and 
heads back to the trucks.

"I got a guy running throwing a weapon," one of the pilots says. Retired 
Gen. Jack Keane, an ABCNEWS consultant who viewed the tape, said the 
object looked like a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, "or something 
larger than a rifle."

The pilots check in with their operational commander, who is monitoring 
the situation. When they tell him they are sure the man was carrying a 
weapon, he tells them: "Engage. Smoke him."

The pilots wait as a tractor arrives on the scene, near the spot where 
the pickup driver dropped the object. One of the Iraqis approaches the 
tractor driver.

Then, within minutes, the Apache pilots open fire with the heavy 30 mm 
cannon, killing first the Iraqi in the field, then the tractor driver. 
The pilots then fire at the large truck and wait to see if they hit the 
last of three men.

When he rolls out from under the truck, one of the pilots says, "He's 
wounded."

The other pilot says, "Hit him," and the Apache opens fire again, 
killing the man.

The Apache fires nearly 100 30 mm cannon rounds in all.

Engagement Called Justified

A senior Army official who viewed the tape said the pilots had the legal 
right to kill the men because they were carrying a weapon. He said there 
were no ground troops in the area and if the Apache pilots had let the 
three Iraqis go, the men might have gone on to kill American troops.

Keane agreed. "Those weapons were obviously not being pointed at them in 
particular, but they [the three Iraqis] are using those weapons in their 
minds for lethal means and they [the Apache pilots] have a right to 
interfere with that," he said.

Anthony Cordesman, an ABCNEWS defense consultant who also viewed the 
tape, said the Apache pilots would have had a much clearer picture of 
the scene than what was recorded on the videotape. He also said they 
would have had intelligence about the identity of the men in the 
vehicles. "They're not getting a sort of blurred picture. They have a 
combination of intelligence and much better imagery than we can see."

As to whether the Apache pilots could have called in ground troops to 
apprehend the men, Cordesman said: "In this kind of war, wherever you 
find organized resistance among the insurgents, you have to act 
immediately. If you wait to send in ground troops almost invariably your 
enemy is going to be gone."

Army officials acknowledged that the 30 mm cannons used by the Apache 
gunners were far bigger than what was needed to kill the men, but said 
it is the smallest weapon the Apaches have.