U.S. Troops Watch As Iraqi Soldiers Kill Iranian Exiles

[jmm99]

and Iraqi governance will be Iraqi governance - not US governance.

It is now their show and the SOFA spells out their sovereignty. The Iraqis will take a different view of the Geneva Conventions (at a minimum, Common Article 3 applies and, for civilians, GC IV) than the US, the UK or Germany.

Regards

Mike

[MikeF]

and Iraqi governance will be Iraqi governance - not US governance.

It is now their show and the SOFA spells out their sovereignty. The Iraqis will take a different view of the Geneva Conventions (at a minimum, Common Article 3 applies and, for civilians, GC IV) than the US, the UK or Germany.

Hi Mike.

That's probably the best way to put it. Ashraf has long been a point of contention. Thankfully, as bad as that incident was, it was only 11 killed. It could have been much worse. Hopefully, the military and political advisors will be able to influence the situation in the upcoming months towards a better outcome and hopefully a sustained resolution.

Doesn't make it easy though. I would not want to have to stand around and not be able to take any action (another example of my own GPF indoctrination and mentality that I alluded to with Bob's World the other day).

v/r

Mike

[UrsaMaior]

and you will know why a shiite (and probably pro Iranian) iraqi govt does everything to get rid of them.

OTOH as stalwart opponents of the religious iranian regime they were mostly pro US. Probably until know.

[jmm99]

your "GPF indoctrination and mentality". There are just situations into which GPF should not be put. As you correctly state, the task is one for military and political advisors to handle - with more emphasis on the political.

Iraq will present many political questions in the upcoming months - some of them could be very serious (hopefully not).

[Ken White]

any US Troops were even in the vicinity? I agree that it is now Iraqi business and not ours so perhaps the troops were left in a witness mode in an effort to get the Iraqis to play nice. If so that was dumb, as the Iraqis were more likely to increase rather than decrease their use of force just to get one on the Mrekai. Regardless of whether it was a local or a DC decision it wasn't smart and wasn't fair to the troops.

Bottling up the MeK initially made sense but we had six years to figure out that they were not a bargaining chip with Iran, they were not going to overthrow the Mullahs and they were going to be a problem. We've had over a year to figure out that the Iraqis were not going to be nice..

[Rex Brynen]

Bottling up the MeK initially made sense but we had six years to figure out that they were not a bargaining chip with Iran, they were not going to overthrow the Mullahs and they were going to be a problem. We've had over a year to figure out that the Iraqis were not going to be nice..

Absolutely.. it seemed at times as if Washington was just hoping that the problem would somehow magically resolve itself (although I do recognize that they were caught between some sympathy for the MeK in some quarters in DC, and no easy solutions on the Iraqi end).

[Schmedlap]

According to U.S. officials, they had no legal authority to intervene. One video taken by the exiles even shows soldiers get into a white sport utility vehicle and roll up their windows as the bloodied men plead for help.

I'm skeptical of this. I'd like to know where the video is. I saw other videos when the story first came out (bunch of links here - full disclosure: it's my blog). I also wonder about the quote above - perhaps JMM or someone else here knows the answer. On every deployment that I went on in two countries - peacekeeping, HIC, or COIN - our ROE included the right to intervene in a situation to defend the life of a noncombatant. Indeed, such actions accounted for the majority of our actions in 2003, when we occupied Baghdad. Most of the shots that we fired in the summer of 03 were in defense of civilians being assaulted by criminal gangs (attempted kidnappings, robberies, murders, etc).

[jmm99]

depends on whether the ROEs for that unit were this...

.... our ROE included the right to intervene in a situation to defend the life of a noncombatant.

or something else. The applicable ROEs (and other command guidance) are most likely classified; in which case, armchair analysis is not possible.

In cases like this, I apply the presumption of innocence re: US troops, until proved otherwise.