US Snipers Allegedly "Bait" Iraqis
WASHINGTON - Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to "bait" their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, and then kill whoever picked up the items, according to the defense attorney for a soldier accused of planting evidence on an Iraqi he killed.
Gary Myers, an attorney for Sgt. Evan Vela, said Monday his client had acted "pursuant to orders."
"We believe that our client has done nothing more than he was instructed to do by superiors," Myers said in a telephone interview.
Myers and Vela's father, Curtis Carnahan of Idaho Falls, Idaho, said in separate interviews that sworn statements and testimony in the cases of two other accused Ranger snipers indicate that the Army has a classified program that encourages snipers to "bait" potential targets and then kill whoever takes the bait.
The Army on Monday declined to confirm such a program exists.
"To prevent the enemy from learning about our tactics, techniques and training procedures, we don't discuss specific methods targeting enemy combatants," said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman.
Boyce also said there are no classified programs that authorize the murder of Iraqi civilians or the use of "drop weapons" to make killings appeared to be legally justified, which is what Vela and the two other snipers are accused of doing.
The transcript of a court hearing for two of the three accused snipers makes several references to the existence of a classified "baiting" program but provides few details of how it works. A copy of the transcript was provided to The Associated Press by Vela's father.
The Washington Post, which first reported the existence of the "baiting" program, cited the sworn statement of Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of a Ranger sniper scout platoon.
"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy," Didier said in the statement. "Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. forces."
The Post said the program was devised by the Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, which advises commanders on more effective methods in today's unconventional conflicts, including ways to combat roadside bombs.
Within months of the "baiting" program's introduction, three snipers in Didier's platoon were charged with murder for allegedly using those items and others to make shootings seem legitimate, according to the Post.
The Post said that although it doesn't appear that the three alleged shootings were specifically part of the classified program, defense attorneys argue that the program may have encouraged them by blurring the legal lines in a complex war zone.
The court martial of one of the accused soldiers, Spec. Jorge Sandoval Jr., is scheduled to begin in Baghdad on Wednesday. Also facing premeditated murder charges are Vela and Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley.
They are part of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska.
Gary Myers, an attorney for Sgt. Evan Vela, said Monday his client had acted "pursuant to orders."
"We believe that our client has done nothing more than he was instructed to do by superiors," Myers said in a telephone interview.
Myers and Vela's father, Curtis Carnahan of Idaho Falls, Idaho, said in separate interviews that sworn statements and testimony in the cases of two other accused Ranger snipers indicate that the Army has a classified program that encourages snipers to "bait" potential targets and then kill whoever takes the bait.
The Army on Monday declined to confirm such a program exists.
"To prevent the enemy from learning about our tactics, techniques and training procedures, we don't discuss specific methods targeting enemy combatants," said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman.
Boyce also said there are no classified programs that authorize the murder of Iraqi civilians or the use of "drop weapons" to make killings appeared to be legally justified, which is what Vela and the two other snipers are accused of doing.
The transcript of a court hearing for two of the three accused snipers makes several references to the existence of a classified "baiting" program but provides few details of how it works. A copy of the transcript was provided to The Associated Press by Vela's father.
The Washington Post, which first reported the existence of the "baiting" program, cited the sworn statement of Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of a Ranger sniper scout platoon.
"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy," Didier said in the statement. "Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. forces."
The Post said the program was devised by the Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, which advises commanders on more effective methods in today's unconventional conflicts, including ways to combat roadside bombs.
Within months of the "baiting" program's introduction, three snipers in Didier's platoon were charged with murder for allegedly using those items and others to make shootings seem legitimate, according to the Post.
The Post said that although it doesn't appear that the three alleged shootings were specifically part of the classified program, defense attorneys argue that the program may have encouraged them by blurring the legal lines in a complex war zone.
The court martial of one of the accused soldiers, Spec. Jorge Sandoval Jr., is scheduled to begin in Baghdad on Wednesday. Also facing premeditated murder charges are Vela and Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley.
They are part of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska.
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I'm off the subject here but when I was in Viet Nam I knew of ARVNS tying NVA prisoners to trees and wrapping them with considerable lenghts of det cord and setting them off in front of other prisoners.
Dakto: So, this would be kind of like wrapping the NVA in C4, I take it.
Would this just blow the NVA in half, or what? Seems like it would be instant death, if you used enough det cord.0 -
quote:Originally posted by ECC
quote:Originally posted by watrulookinat
Nothing wrong with a little bait in my book. Do what ever it takes.
+10
+1000 -
The article should have been about how dumb Iraqi civilians are for picking up det cord or guns lying in the open, becoming a target and getting killed. 0 -
Why not just bombard them with hog waste! 0 -
Absolutely disgusting that these men are being persecuted for killing the enemy and those who would support them.
If little Hadji finds a shiny RPK or a small length of det cord just lying innocently on the ground in front of a solid backstop; oh well.
The problem is that most commanders over there don't know how to employ their snipers, and have 'em loading ammo cans and other crap duty instead of gaining valuable intel about the neighborhood and preventing emplacement of IEDs. That these guys are Rangers is not surprising; Rangers Lead The Way.0 -
Great. Why shoot them when they were carting this stuff away by the boatload from ammunition dumps when we can bait them later?
US snipers, like scientists, should interfere as little directly with their observations as possible. With the introduction of bait, who knows if who you're zapping is a real bad guy or just some dumb SOB who doesn't know what det cord is. They're not all jihadis, right? They can't all know what det cord is and I'm sorry, but proximity does not equal guilt in any world humans come from.
And what if it's worse than some curious bozo coming to take a look? What if it's actually a friendly civvy (you remember them - the ones we're ostensibly there to help, right?) who notices it and wants to get confirmation before he or she goes running to the nearest checkpoint to warn our guys about a roadside bomb? If we teach Iraqis to stay the eff away from all things suspicious, there goes one of our best sources of non-torture derived information.
Now if some idiot is digging a hole and planting bombs or retrieving AK's from a cache, blow him away. But letting snipers set up bait just so they can draw jihadis out rack up a head count is asinine at best and counterproductive at worst.0 -
quote:Originally posted by Ba Sardo
Great. Why shoot them when they were carting this stuff away by the boatload from ammunition dumps when we can bait them later?
US snipers, like scientists, should interfere as little directly with their observations as possible. With the introduction of bait, who knows if who you're zapping is a real bad guy or just some dumb SOB who doesn't know what det cord is. They're not all jihadis, right? They can't all know what det cord is and I'm sorry, but proximity does not equal guilt in any world humans come from.
And what if it's worse than some curious bozo coming to take a look? What if it's actually a friendly civvy (you remember them - the ones we're ostensibly there to help, right?) who notices it and wants to get confirmation before he or she goes running to the nearest checkpoint to warn our guys about a roadside bomb? If we teach Iraqis to stay the eff away from all things suspicious, there goes one of our best sources of non-torture derived information.
Now if some idiot is digging a hole and planting bombs or retrieving AK's from a cache, blow him away. But letting snipers set up bait just so they can draw jihadis out rack up a head count is asinine at best and counterproductive at worst.
Ditto0 -
quote:Originally posted by idsman75
Iraqi police would drive Iraqi police vehicles in convoy. pretend one broke down and abandoned it. Insurgents would come out with fuel cans and start dousing it with gasoline in order to set it on fire. Snipers would pick their targets off with ease.
Now this I like!0 -
The USA did not accept the answer " I was only following orders" from the Germans after WW-2. Think about it.... Personaly I think baiting is a waste of time. Shoot any body who looks like a moslum.
That should end this ca ca real fast.
TURN THE DOGS OF WAR LOOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!0 -
Soldiers are taught from the get-go that they should never pick anything up on the battlefield. I feel real bad for the harmless civilian scavengers who are just trying to gather some scrap metal to feed their family, then get shot. However, War is Hell, so... God will know his own. 0 -
When you are in the middle of a losing quagmire, desperate tactics emerge.
Maybe Bush can wave the mission accomplished sign again.0 -
The moral of the story here is "bait and kill" where innocent civilians are about and then rightfully be charged and tried for murder and other criminal activities. 0 -
You folks fail to realize that there are very few "innocent civilians" involved in picking up grenades, det cord, AKs, or claymores. They are not so curious or stupid as to wander around, looking for scrap militaria to pick up and collect as souvenirs.
The old,"Poor civilian innocently picking through the detritus of war, intent on feeding his family" is a myth propagated by lefties that missed their chance to protest Vietnam, and carried forward to this action by ill-informed lefty sympathizers.
If, as other posters have noted, this has gone on since the beginning of the war; only the dumbest and most intent on causing damage to coalition forces would actually pick the item up.
When we allow politicians the freedom to spout the lefty crap they want to while attempting to second-guess the leaders on the ground, and deny our troops the means and methods to successfully persecute the enemy; we lose. Big Time.
For the pinkos that espouse the idea that snipers are nothing but robotic killers that shoot anything in their AO without IDing the target or guessing their intent: if brains were det cord; you have a FTF.
Maybe John Kerry (who served in Vietnam-remember?)has a better idea as to how to lose this as clumsily as possible, with an even greater body count, and tarnish our Nation's standing in the "world view".
KMAYLSA Y'all!0 -
gunnut, "I'DING" the enemy is the key. Sniper's do have a conscious, and they do not kill the enemy, unless they make a conscious decison to do so. And, such decisons rest with the Sniper's morals. Sometimes bad decisions are made, and that is where justifiable charges might arise. 0 -
Kimi,I think you get it. At least part of it.
In war, sometimes bad decisions are made due to the intel available at that specific time. Von Clausewitz called the unpredictability of the battlefield,"The fog of War", and that pretty much describes what occurs during an ambush, or IED explosion, or plain ol' foot patrol.
The individual troopie has no idea that just up the street, some kids were playing soccer to mask the activities of the terrorists that took over their home last night, and emplaced an IED in the street. He has no idea of anything outside his own field of vision and the near-constant garble on the radio; other units, other actions, other stuff.
When a Scout/Sniper team is deployed correctly, and has been able to overwatch for a shift or two; our troopie now has the security of knowing that his path is clear, the terrs took a hit recently, and the house in the middle of the block was where the hostage family lives.
I believe that in a war, there are targets and there are potential targets; deciding which to engage at which time is the difference between honor and killing someone.0 -
I hope I get it gunnut. I consider myself somewhat imminently qualified to speak about the subject. My initial response was in "general terms" only, in response to the subject matters somewhat scanty details.
On a more specific note, before an order to "bait" becomes a realtiy, there would have to be damn good reason to base it own. Several reasons come to my mind right now. One would be when an all out effort to educate the populace had met with civil and military authorities approval. Another might be when a specific area is classifed as strictly enemey forces with a like civilian populace. And a third would be like when my old CO ordered mortars and artillery to level a village and then destroy it with a sweep. This after numerous talks with the village chief about his troops taking sniper fire from a ville near his AOR, and after notifying his Battalion Commander exactly what he was going to do if it happened again - this w/o and against the approval of higher authority. Another of his men got hit with enemy fire, and he wasted the ville. He was relieved, sent stateside, and less than a year later awarded the Silver Star for his actions.
Another note: It sounds as if you might be serving for us with some very special men...thank you, if that's the case. And, thank you, even if you are just voicing your feelings.
Semper Fi0 -
The tactic is nothing new, the VC even used this on us in vietnam, baiting "booby traps". There is a very fine line I would not want to be tempted to cross... Using det cords is a little cruel in my opinion cause a "ball of wire" laying on the side of the road might as well be a candy bar to some poor uneducated kid.
These tactical decisions are best left to snipers and their commander though. Just think how tough it can be for a sniper in a "curfew" situation (most war zones), where you are authorized to kill any male of military age who is out past the curfew.0 -
I say we spread the rumor that the American soldiers dip their ammo in pork fat......:) No virgins for Ahmed! 0 -
They bait"IED" first! 0 -
Kimi, you honor the sacrifices and hardship of my ancestors when you attempt to give me credit for their knowledge and deeds; I am not serving, have never had the opportunity in this conflict, but my brother and uncle have and are.
I only reflect what their letters home have taught me about the current situation, and I have a few friends in the Rangers who are very good shots.
Might I suggest a quick perusal of the magazine shelves next time a visit to the grocery store presents itself, the latest copy of Soldier of Fortune gives a pretty good assessment of our force's capabilities in this area, and a few ideas about how best to employ our shooters to maximum effect.
It isn't your average newspaper.0
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