U.K. NEWSPAPER SHOWS FOOTAGE OF FRIENDLY FIRE INCIDENT

A British newspaper, The Sun, has created a new furor over U.S. government secrecy by posting on its website a 15-minute cockpit video recording of a "friendly fire" incident that occurred during the 2003 invasion of Iraq in which a British convoy was fired upon by American A-10 attack jets, killing Lance Corporal Matty Hull. A coroner's inquest into Hull's death had been suspended after word of the cockpit video came to light. The Pentagon provided the video to British authorities but refused on security grounds to allow it to be shown at the inquest. After the Sun released the video, it was picked up by British television networks, whereupon the U.S. agreed to release it. An earlier U.S. investigation had concluded that the pilots "followed the procedures and processes for engaging targets." However, Tom Newton Dunn, defense editor of The Sun, ticked of six basic safety procedures that were broken by the pilots and insisted that the U.S. had kept the video secret to avoid legal action and embarrassment. The video ends with one of the pilots remarking, "I'm going to be sick." Another is later heard crying out, "I'm dead." State Department spokesman Sean McCormack commented late Tuesday that the pilots "immediately understood that this just was a terrible, terrible mistake and that they felt an immediate remorse for what happened."

07/02/2007