Friendly fire takes a toll on coalition

WASHINGTON -- Who goes there: friend or foe?

Soldiers, sailors and pilots -- even with their high-tech military machines -- often have a hard time telling the difference in the heat of battle.

That's why friendly fire has become a major cause of coalition casualties in Iraq, just as it was in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

In 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, friendly fire incidents -- which the military terms "fratricide" -- accounted for nearly one in four casualties. So far in Gulf War II:

-- Friendly fire is believed to have caused at least five of 27 British deaths, including those of two Royal Air Force pilots shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile.

-- A Patriot missile also may have mistakenly shot down a U.S. Navy F/A-18C Hornet.

-- Among a number of friendly fire incidents on the ground, 30 Marines were injured when their units fired at each other near Nasiriyah.

-- Spc. Donald Samuel Oaks Jr., 20, was killed and several other soldiers were missing after an F-15E Strike Eagle attacked their position.

The high rate of friendly fire casualties in Desert Storm galvanized the military to search for new ways to prevent them.

The simplest solution -- changing the "rules of engagement" so that troops are allowed to fire only when they are absolutely sure of their target -- won't work, military experts say. "If you tighten the rules of engagement to the point that you reduce fratricide, the enemy begins inflicting great casualties on you," said Maj. Bill McKean, an Army specialist on the subject. "Waiting until you're sure in combat could mean becoming a casualty yourself."

Other ideas range from electronic systems that can query and identify targets as "friendly" or "unknown" to "situational awareness" systems that instantly update battlefield positions of friendly troops and vehicles. Such systems could be placed on aircraft, ships at sea, surface vehicles and even the gun sights of weapons carried by foot soldiers.

The Army has tested a Battlefield Combat Identification System, which allows operators of tanks and other fighting vehicles to make quick shoot/don't shoot decisions. It also could be used in helicopters.

The system features a laser rangefinder that probes and "interrogates" a potential target with an electronic signal. Friendly vehicles have an electronic responder that returns an encrypted "friend" signal, visible in the gunner's sight or audible over an intercom.

Tests showed that the battlefield system had a 95 percent probability of correctly identifying a friend within one second. High costs, however, stymied plans to install the system. One estimate put the price tag at $250 million for each Army division.

A 2001 congressional report recommended that the Pentagon take time to develop a comprehensive identification-of-friend-or-foe, or IFF, blueprint so the IFF system would fit all military services.

Aircraft have had IFF systems -- transponders that broadcast a secret code signaling "friend."

The systems are not foolproof, however, as the March 23 Patriot missile incident showed. The downed Royal Air Force jet fighter had a state-of-the-art IFF system. Officials are still investigating what happened.

U.S. troops in Iraq have adopted inexpensive, ad hoc IFF systems of their own.

The Marines, for instance, wear credit-card size pieces of tape on their helmets and the left rear shoulders of their uniforms. The tape reflects infrared light and is visible through night-vision goggles used by ground forces and pilots.

Drivers sometimes tie swatches of similarly visible fabric to their vehicle roofs at night.

Although friendly fire casualties have always troubled armies, the more lethal weapons become, the more likely they are to kill or injure friendly forces, said Lt. Gen. Charles A. Homer, who commanded Central Air Forces in the first Gulf War.

"If an incident happened in World War II or Korea, you had a guy with a shrapnel wound," he said. "Now you have large numbers of killed in action and wounded in action."

Long-distance and "over-the-horizon" targeting systems also have contributed to friendly fire casualties. In a single incident in Afghanistan, on December 5, 2001, 26 American and Northern Alliance troops were killed and 50 injured by a "smart bomb" dropped from a B- 52.

A 2002 National War College study summed up the problem this way: "The rapid evolution of weapons technology continues to outpace the U. S. military's capability to positively differentiate between friend and foe, and to accurately identify the precise location of desired targets."

Copyright C 2003 Deseret News Publishing Co.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.