Friendly fire blamed for two-thirds of deaths

IN the first seven days of fighting in Iraq, accidents and friendly fire — not enemy actions — accounted for nearly two-thirds of the reported deaths of US and British troops.

Defence officials and other sources have confirmed 45 fatalities: 25 Americans and 20 Britons.

The 14 US soldiers and two British troops killed by hostile fire were 36% of the total. Accidents that ranged from helicopter crashes to a drowning caused nine US and 14 British deaths, 51% of the total. Two Americans and four Britons, or 13%, died in three incidents of fire by their own side.

An Australian TV cameraman and a British TV news reporter also died by gunfire. Still missing are nine American and two British troops.

Military experts say they expect the proportion of deaths from hostile fire to rise as coalition units close on Baghdad and clash with Iraqi Republican Guard divisions. But the initial pattern, in which casualties by mishap exceed combat losses, doesn't surprise veteran officers.

It repeats what US and other Western forces have experienced in other recent campaigns:

Iraqis killed 112 US troops during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, while 180 Americans died from other causes 35 by friendly fire, 145 in accidents.

Thirteen Americans have died in combat or from land mines since the war on the Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists in Afghanistan began in late 2001. Four Americans and four Canadians have fallen to friendly fire, while 35 US service members have died in aircraft crashes and other accidents.

Experience was different in earlier, protracted wars, when millions of Americans went to battle. Of the 58,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam War, 81% were killed in combat, the Department of Veterans Affairs says. The comparable figure is 91% in the Korean War and 72% in World War II.

Mistakes often are high in the first days of fighting because of "unfamiliarity with combat, equipment, weather and terrain," says retired Army Special Forces Maj F Andy Messing Jr, executive director of the National Defence Council Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia.

"Seven days after soldiers cross the forward edge of the battle area, they are seven times better."

He says fatal mishaps soon will "level out" but they are apt to rise again with "fatigue and combat stress" as the war gets longer and tougher.

"The biggest killer is fatigue, and right now we have a whole Army running toward Baghdad on zippo hours of sleep," he said.

Accidents are inevitable in military life in wartime or peacetime, defence experts say.

"Whether you are in combat or not, operations are dangerous," says retired general Al Gray, who was Marine Corps commandant during the first Gulf War. Gray is a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in suburban Washington, DC.

About 250 members of the US armed services die each year in on-duty accidents unconnected with combat, Pentagon statistics show. "The fact that a soldier is deployed doesn't make him immune to what happens on a normal basis," says Patrick Garrett, a military and intelligence analyst for GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank in Alexandria, Va.