Iraq War: Checkpoints

We had "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on 05/01/03.  We've been occupying Iraq for nearly two years.

Should this really still be happening?

What Iraq's checkpoints are like by Annia Ciezadlo Christian Science Monitor 03/07/05.  This is a description of the American checkpoints in Iraq by a reporter who's been there for a while.  She notes that "vaguely Middle Eastern, which perhaps makes my checkpoint experience a little closer to that of the typical Iraqi."  And she describes it as follows:

You're driving along and you see a couple of soldiers standing by the side of the road - but that's a pretty ubiquitous sight in Baghdad, so you don't think anything of it. Next thing you know, soldiers are screaming at you, pointing their rifles and swiveling tank guns in your direction, and you didn't even know it was a checkpoint.

If it's confusing for me - and I'm an American - what is it like for Iraqis who don't speak English?

In situations like this, I've often had Iraqi drivers who step on the gas. It's a natural reaction: Angry soldiers are screaming at you in a language you don't understand, and you think they're saying "get out of here," and you're terrified to boot, so you try to drive your way out.

Another problem is that the US troops tend to have two-stage checkpoints. First there's a knot of Iraqi security forces standing by a sign that says, in Arabic and English, "Stop or you will be shot." Most of the time, the Iraqis will casually wave you through.

Your driver, who slowed down for the checkpoint, will accelerate to resume his normal speed. What he doesn't realize is that there's another, American checkpoint several hundred yards past the Iraqi checkpoint, and he's speeding toward it. Sometimes, he may even think that being waved through the first checkpoint means he's exempt from the second one (especially if he's not familiar with American checkpoint routines).

This is an amazing thing.  Those troops out there on the road are the face of the United States to the ordinary Iraqi.  They are also the face of the interim government, and will probably be the face of the new Shia government in many parts of the country for some time to come.

It's impossible for me to imagine that this is the best way to be doing these checkpoints.  Are they employing simple measures like speed bumps?  And American forces didn't just arrive yesterday.  The occupation has been going on for nearly two years.

Were incidents like this so common in occupied Germany and Japan after the Second World War?  Or in Bosnia and Kosovo more recently? I don't know the answer to those questions, though I don't recall ever coming across anything like that about the German occupation.

But  something is wrong with this.

The Giuliana Sgrena case

Der Spiegel's English site provides a roundup of opinion on the Guiliana Sgrena incident from four leading German newspapers, including this one:

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung, offers a more blunt assessment of the Pentagon's handling of the tragedy. "Mistrust of the American occupiers is appropriate," it writes. "Those who systematically break their own laws, subjecting prisoners in third countries to interrogation methods that no US court would permit, can't be surprised when people don't put it past them to still be hanging on to the Cold War policy of assassinating undesirable opponents." For that reason, Giuliana's allegation that the US deliberately shot at her will find many ready audiences. Up till now, she hasn't delivered any evidence, nor has she offered a plausible explanation. But don't expect much from the US either. "There will be detailed reports from everyone involved," the paper writes, "But we have to assume that neither the public nor any court will have the chance to ask questions of the soldiers who fired the shots. It would, therefore, be prudent to have doubts about the official version." If the shots fired at Sgrena's car were a blunder, the paper concludes, it would bear out the suspicion that the US soldiers are not capable of providing security for the citizens of Iraq. "At best, they can barely fefend themselves," the paper concluded.

Sgrena has spoken to the widow of Nicola Calipari, the Italian security agent who died shielding Sgrena with his body from American bullets.  "Such outstanding people should not die without reason," she said.  (My translation from the German in Italien trauert um den Sgrena-Retter Der Spiegel Online 03/07/05).  Tens of thousands turned out in pouring rain to pay tribute to the slain agent, who received a state funeral on Monday.  The Italian government is investigating Calipari's shooting as a suspected murder.

Sgrena also decscribed the shooting as follows: "It was raining bullets. We didn't know where they were coming from.  They kept shooting for several minutes.  That was the worst thing I have ever experienced."  (My translation from the German in GIs feuerten Hunderte Kugeln auf Sgrenas Auto Der Spiegel Online 03/07/05).  Giovanni di Lorenzo, editor of the prestigious German weekly Die Zeit, for which Sgrena also worked, said that witnesses claimed that the American soldiers fired 300-400 shots at the vehicle.  Di Lorenzo also said that the Italian agents were constantly on the phone telling the US military in English that they were coming.  This same Spiegel article notes that the auto was under the control of the US soldiers for 20 minutes, which could be a circumstantial argument against the idea that the attack was deliberately meant to kill Sgrena.

Die Zeit (Hamburg) has carried several articles about the attack on their newly-freed reporter:

Die letzte Ehre erweisen von Melanie Ruprecht 03/07/05

Todesschüsse im Irak belasten italienisch-amerikanisches Verhältnis An interview with Italy's European Minister Rocco Buttiglione by Friedbert Meurer 03/07/05.  Despite the official declarations that the incident will not affect the US-Italian relationship, Buttiglione criticizes the Americans for being too trigger-happy in Iraq.  He stresses that the Italian government expect the US government to investigate the incident thoroughly and see that those responsible for the shooting are punished.  He also expresses strong skepticism that the Americans deliberately tried to kill Sgrena.  But he finds it difficult to believe that an experienced agent like Calipari would have neglected to inform the Americans of their approach to the airport.

Tragischer Irrtum oder Hinterhalt? von Melanie Ruprecht 03/06/05
Frei - und dann die Tragödie von Ulrich Ladurner 03/05/05
Schüsse auf Retter und Befreite: "Checkpoint-Tod" ist im Irak längst zum festen Begriff geworden von Jochen Bittner 03/05/05

We can at least hope that the publicity given to this incident and its diplomatic consequences will improve security procedures to minimize the shooting of unarmed civilians at the Iraqi checkpoints: Shootings by U.S. at Iraq Checkpoints Questioned by R. Jeffrey Smith and Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post 05/07/05.

U.S. soldiers have fired on the occupants of many cars approaching their positions over the past year anda half, only to discover that the people they killed were not suicide bombers or attackers but Iraqi civilians. They did so while operating under rules of engagement that the military has classified and under a legal doctrine that grants U.S. troops immunity from civil liability for misjudgment.

Human rights groups have complained that the military's rules of engagement for handling local citizens at checkpoints are too permissive. The groups have accused U.S. forces of making inadequate efforts to safeguard civilians and to comply with laws of war that prohibit the use of excessive or indiscriminate force and permit deadly action only when soldiers' lives are clearly threatened.

A "military source," whom the Post allowed to remain anonymous, gives an account that hardly seems consistent with Sgrena's report that the Italian security agents wereconstantly on the phone speaking in English warning that they were approaching.  The shooting took place 700 meters - not kilometers, meters - from the airport where a plane was waiting to take Sgrena and the intelligence officers back to Italy.  The Post's anonymous source instead blames the Italian agents:

But no specific coordination occurred between those involved in Sgrena's rescue and the military unit responsible for the checkpoint, according to the source, who said he cannot be named because the military's investigation into the incident is continuing. ...

The absence of advance communication between the Italians and the U.S. soldiers at the checkpoint appears to have put the occupants of the car in grave jeopardy, given what many U.S. officials describe as the military's standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq. [my emphasis]

"In my view, the main contributing factor was a lack of prior coordination with the ground unit," the source said. "If requested, we would have resourced and supported this mission very differently."

The article gives some descriptions of incidents involving shooting of Iraqi civilians at checkponits.  And the inevitable justification that the military has to err on the side of caution.  But this factor is also mentioned, a reflection of the fact that the Pentagon was simply unprepared to handle the kind of occupation duties for which they were responsible once the US occupied Iraq:

Human Rights Watch ... reprinted excerpts from an Army task force's internal study that described its soldiers as untrained and unprepared to conduct checkpoint operations. The study asked: "How does the soldier know exactly what the rule of engagement is" when shifting from combat to policing? "Soldiers who have just conducted combat against dark-skinned personnel wearing civilian clothes have difficulty trusting dark-skinned personnel wearing civilian clothes."

At some point, Congresspeople and Senators on both sides of the aisles need to start worrying less about sentimental clichees about the military and start focusing in a serious way on some of the very practical problems with the military that have come to light as a result of the Iraq War.