[DEBATE] : Fwd: WP [do read] U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With 'Bait'

[Sean Jacobs]

> U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With 'Bait'
> Snipers Describe Classified Program
>
> By Josh White and Joshua Partlow
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Monday, September 24, 2007; A01
>
> A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to  
> target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of "bait," such as  
> detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing  
> Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.
>
> The classified program was described in investigative documents  
> related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are  
> accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.
>
> "Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use,  
> with the intention of destroying the enemy," Capt. Matthew P. Didier,  
> the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st  
> Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn 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."
>
> In documents obtained by  
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/ 
> The+Washington+Post+Company?tid=informline>The Washington Post from  
> family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the  
> U.S. military's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January  
> and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the "drop items"  
> to be used "to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming  
> Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight."
>
> Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military  
> Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined "quite  
> meticulously" because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what  
> happens when civilians pick up the items.
>
> "In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements  
> of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was  
> potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to  
> walk around with a target on his back," Fidell said.
>
> Soldiers said that about a dozen platoon members were aware of the  
> program, and that numerous others knew about the "drop items" but did  
> not know their purpose. Two soldiers who had not been officially  
> informed about the program came forward with allegations of wrongdoing  
> after they learned they were going to be punished for falling asleep  
> on a sniper mission, according to the documents.
>
> Army officials declined to discuss the classified program, details of  
> which appear in unclassified investigative documents and in  
> transcripts of court testimony. Criminal investigators wrote that they  
> found materials related to the program in a white cardboard box and an  
> ammunition can at the sniper unit's base.
>
> "We don't discuss specific methods targeting enemy combatants," said  
> Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman. "The accused are charged with murder  
> and wrongfully placing weapons on the remains of Iraqi nationals.  
> There are no classified programs that authorize the murder of local  
> nationals and the use of 'drop weapons' to make killings appear  
> legally justified."
>
> It is unclear whether the program reached elsewhere in Iraq and how  
> many people were killed through the baiting tactics.
>
> Members of the sniper platoon have said they felt pressure from  
> commanders to kill more insurgents because U.S. units in the area had  
> taken heavy losses. The sniper unit -- dubbed "the painted demons"  
> because of the use of tiger-stripe face paint -- often went on  
> missions into hostile areas to intercept insurgents going to and from  
> hidden weapons caches.
>
> "It's our job out here to lay people down who are doing bad things,"  
> Spec. Joshua L. Michaud testified in Iraq in July, discussing the  
> unit's numerous casualties. "I don't want to call it revenge, but we  
> needed to find a way so that we could get the bad guys the right way  
> and still maintain the right military things to do."
>
> Within months of the 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. Though it does not appear  
> that the three alleged shootings were specifically part of the  
> classified program, defense attorneys argue that the program may have  
> opened the door to the soldiers' actions because it blurred the legal  
> lines of killing in a complex war zone.
>
> James D. Culp, a civilian attorney for one of the snipers, Sgt. Evan  
> Vela, said the soldiers became "battle-fatigued pawns in a newfangled  
> concept of 'baiting' warfare that, like an onion, perhaps looked good  
> on the surface, but started stinking to high hell the minute the  
> layers were pulled back and scrutinized."
>
> Spec. Jorge Sandoval and Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley are accused by the  
> military of placing a spool of wire into the pocket of an Iraqi man  
> Sandoval had shot on April 27 on Hensley's order. The man had been  
> cutting grass with a rusty sickle when he was shot, according to court  
> documents.
>
> The military alleges that the killing of the man carrying the sickle  
> was inappropriate. Hensley and Sandoval have been charged with murder  
> and with planting evidence.
>
> As Sandoval and Hensley approached the corpse, according to testimony  
> and court documents, they allegedly placed a spool of wire, often used  
> by insurgents to detonate roadside bombs, into the man's pocket in an  
> attempt to make the case for the kill ironclad.
>
> One soldier who came forward with the allegations, Pfc. David C.  
> Petta, told the same court that he believed the classified items were  
> for dropping on people the unit had killed, "to enforce if we killed  
> somebody that we knew was a bad guy but we didn't have the evidence to  
> show for it." Petta had not been officially briefed about the program.
>
> Two weeks after that killing, Sandoval and his sniper team stopped for  
> the night in a concealed "hide" in the village of Jurf as Sakhr along  
> the Euphrates River. While other snipers slept, Hensley watched as an  
> Iraqi man, Genei Nesir Khudair, slowly approached the hide. He radioed  
> to Didier, then a first lieutenant, for permission to go for a "close  
> kill."
>
> "I told him that as the ground forces commander, I would authorize  
> that if it was necessary," Didier testified. "And about five minutes  
> later, he told me that he had indeed killed the individual."
>
> The U.S. military alleges that Vela, on Hensley's order, shot the  
> Iraqi man twice in the head with a 9mm pistol after he had been taken  
> into custody. It was Vela's first kill, and he was visibly shaken. "He  
> looked weird," Sgt. Robert Redfern testified. "Just messed up from it.  
> How would you feel if you had to shoot someone?"
>
> At the time the two shots rang out, Sandoval was on guard duty about  
> 20 meters away, out of sight of Vela, inside a broken-down pump house  
> along the Euphrates River, soldiers testified.
>
> Vela and Hensley told investigators that the man had an  
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/AK-47+Assault+Rifle? 
> tid=informline>AK-47 with him and that he posed a threat, but other  
> soldiers have alleged that the AK-47 was planted next to Khudair after  
> he was shot.
>
> Hensley's attorney could not be reached to comment. Sandoval's  
> attorney, Capt. Craig Drummond, thinks his client is innocent in both  
> deaths.
>
> "Literally, they have charged this guy with two murders when on both  
> occasions he was just doing his job," Drummond said.
>
> Drummond said Sandoval did not have anything to do with placing an  
> AK-47 in the pump-house killing. Sandoval made a statement to  
> investigators discussing his involvement in planting the command wire  
> on the first victim.
>
> "That was done by one of the soldiers at the scene basically out of  
> stupidity. The guys were trying to ensure that there were no questions  
> at all about this kill," Drummond said. "It was done to overly justify  
> a kill that didn't need justification."
>
> Hensley is also charged with killing an Iraqi man whom he approached  
> after the sniper team noticed the man placing wires on a road. Hensley  
> shot him outside his home, maintaining that the man appeared to be  
> moving for a weapon.
>
> Two and a half months after the shooting near the pump house,  
> authorities seized Sandoval while he was vacationing at his mother's  
> house in  
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Laredo? 
> tid=informline>Laredo,  
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Tex.? 
> tid=informline>Tex. The charges have baffled family members, who  
> describe Sandoval as a caring and honest young man who is being  
> punished for following orders.
>
> "This has been a shock to all of us," said his eldest sister, Norma  
> Vasquez. "He's been in shock, too, he doesn't know what . . . is going  
> on."
>
> Sandoval, a former high school  
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Army+ROTC? 
> tid=informline>ROTC member, is scheduled to face a court-martial in  
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Baghdad? 
> tid=informline>Baghdad on Wednesday.
>
> Vela's father, Curtis Carnahan, said he thinks the military is rushing  
> the cases and is holding the proceedings in a war zone to shield facts  
> from the U.S. public.
>
> "It's an injustice that is being done to them," Carnahan said. "I feel  
> like you can't prosecute our soldiers for acts of war and threaten  
> them with years and years of confinement when this program, if it  
> comes to the light of day, was clearly coming from higher levels. . .  
> . All those people who said 'go use this stuff' just disappeared, like  
> they never sanctioned it."
>
> Partlow reported from Baghdad. Researcher Julie Tate contributed to  
> this report.
>
>