Don't worry about the Iraqis, it's the Americans you want to watch'. The
proof is in the pudding really."
A British soldier who survived a fatal friendly fire incident has launched
a scathing attack on the US pilot responsible
for killing his comrade.
"He (the pilot) had absolutely no regard for human life. I believe he was a
cowboy... He'd just gone out on a jolly," Lance Corporal Steven Gerrard
told The Times of London.
Corporal Gerrard, 33, spoke to one of the paper's reporters from his bed
aboard the British hospital ship Argus in the Gulf.
A British soldier was killed and four others were injured last Friday in a
friendly fire incident in southern Iraq, the fifth such casualty since the
war began. He was killed after an American A-10 tankbuster plane targeted
two armoured
vehicles near Iraq's second largest city Basra.
"You've got an A-10 with advanced technology and he can't use a thermal
sight to identify whether a tank is a friend or foe. It's ridiculous,"
Corporal Gerrard said.
"Combat is what I've been trained for. I can command my vehicle. I can keep
it from being attacked. What I have not been trained to do is look over my
shoulder to see whether an American is shooting at me. "I'm curious about
what's going to happen to the pilot. He's killed one of my friends."
Corporal Gerrard has also criticised the pilot for shooting when there were
civilians so close to the tanks. "There was a boy of about 12 years old. He
was no more than 20 metres away when the [US soldier] opened up. There were
all these civilians around."
The paper says three of the injured British soldiers, including Corporal
Gerrard, were flown home to Britain late on Sunday after being treated for
shrapnel wounds and burns.
A fourth remains in the hospital ship's intensive care unit.
"After this I am quite pleased to be going home," one of the wounded,
Lieutenant Alex MacEwen, told the paper.
"'Blue-on-blue' has always been one of my biggest fears. It is something
that my friends and family joked about. 'Don't worry about the Iraqis, it's
the Americans you want to watch'. The proof is in the pudding really."
The fatal incident brought to five the number of British soldiers who have
been killed by friendly fire since the US-led war on Iraq began on March
20. On March 23, a US anti-missile Patriot missile shot down a British
Tornado bomber, killing both pilots on board.
A day later, two soldiers were killed when a British Challenger tank
mistakenly opened fire on another Challenger tank.
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=45238&group=webcast
