Iraqi Checkpoint Security Reevaluated

MARGARET WARNER:

And for more on the reaction in Italy and the broader issue of the dangers at checkpoints in Iraq, we get three views.

Paul Rieckhoff left Iraq a year ago after serving as a first lieutenant and platoon commander in the U.S. Army. He's now executive director of Operation Truth, a nonprofit group that advocates on behalf of U.S. soldiers.

Fred Abrahams is a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. He authored a report in late 2003 titled "Hearts and Minds: Postwar Civilian Deaths in Baghdad by U.S. Forces."

And Maurizio Molinari is a New York-based columnist for the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Welcome to you all. Maurizio Molinari, how big a story is this in Italy?

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

It is the biggest story of the moment in Italy.

MARGARET WARNER:

And why? Tell us a little bit more about both Mr. Calipari and also Ms. Sgrena that makes it of particular interest.

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

Nicola Calipari is considered by the Italian public as a hero. He was the most important agent we had in Baghdad. While Guiliana Sgrena is one of the most well known journalists of "Il Manifesto," that as was told before is the leading journal of the radical left.

So the most preeminent voice against also the military operation in Iraq meaning that while Calipari is the symbol, the name, the face of the soldiers, the Italian has on the ground, Guiliana Sgrena is the face, the voice of those that opposed that presence.

MARGARET WARNER:

Now, you just heard Scott McClellan at the White House talk about there were significant differences in the accounts of what happened. What are the one or two most important differences between what at least U.S. officials said originally and what Guiliana Sgrena has said?

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

Guiliana Sgrena is saying in the interviews that she gave that the reason for the ambush were mainly two: The first one, the opposition of the Bush administration to the policy of paying ransom to kidnappers.

MARGARET WARNER:

And the view is that Mr. Calipari in fact did arrange a ransom payment, is that right?

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

This is correct.

MARGARET WARNER:

OK.

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

And the second reason that herself explained in several occasions publicly is that she's saying that she has some secret information on the battle of Fallujah and that seems that the Americans don't want her to reveal these stories.

MARGARET WARNER:

And aren't there really basic differences too between whether there were warning shots fired, how fast the car was approaching and so on?

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

Regarding the dynamic of the incident, of course, the stories are completely different because she is saying that they were going very slow and that suddenly they were fired upon by these American troops.

And more than that that the secret agents that were in the car were informing almost minute by minute the Italian authorities about where they were and what they were doing.

MARGARET WARNER:

All right. Mr. Abrahams let me go to you. You prepared this report admittedly about a year-and-a-half ago on incidents like this and others. How common is it to have these cases of essentially mistaken identity at checkpoints where civilians are shot at?

FRED ABRAHAMS:

Well, when I heard this news I was shocked. But I can't say I was surprised, because unfortunately incidents like this where civilians die are frequent in Iraq.

We're hearing about this case today because the victims were Italians. But Iraqis face this type of violence on an almost — I can't say daily but on a frequent basis.

The report that we did, at the end of 2003 we documented 18 cases of civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. troops in Baghdad alone over a five-month period. And 11 of those cases were incidents at checkpoints.

And mostly that's when Iraqis civilians don't realize that they're supposed to stop. They don't see the signs. They don't see the lights. And they basically blunder into their own deaths.

And so, you know, the report was very critical about the way checkpoints have been set up. I do believe in all fairness, there have been improvements since that report was issued.

MARGARET WARNER:

Lt. Rieckhoff, you have I gather done duty at literally hundreds of checkpoints. Tell us what it's like, and how do incidents like this happen?

PAUL RIECKHOFF:

Well, you're right. I spent roughly a year in Baghdad and manned countless checkpoints just like the one that's described in this incident.

I think the thing I want people to really understand is the enormous pressure that these soldiers are under and the enormity of the task that they're faced with.

They're asked to make really split second decisions that could mean the difference between their own lives and obviously Iraqi civilian lives as well. It's a tremendous amount of pressure and soldiers are forced to make these types of decisions in Iraq every single day.

It's really not a good duty that you want. I mean you're under tremendous pressure from car bombs, from RPG's, from insurgents.

There's a million and one ways that an American soldier could be killed in these checkpoints and at the same time they are trying to preserve the lives of civilians.

I think the accusations that these American soldiers intentionally targeted the journalist or her car are really ridiculous, and I don't think any American soldier would want to inflict that type of harm on anyone from anywhere.

MARGARET WARNER:

Well, tell us a little more about how the process is supposed to work. I mean as a car approaches the checkpoint, what are the U.S. soldiers do? What are the Iraqi drivers supposed to do? How are they supposed to know?

PAUL RIECKHOFF:

And the important thing to understand is that there are various types of checkpoints.

You have permanent checkpoints that could have been in place for almost two years now, and then you have more temporary checkpoints that could have been established in a matter of minutes.

And traditionally what you want to do is create a sign or a series of almost road signs that would be a few hundred meters down the road in English and in Arabic and in visible color, so that drivers are alerted that there is a checkpoint approaching.

You try to stagger these signs at intervals reaching up to the checkpoint. And then you've got concertina wire or barbed wire and the soldiers do have an escalation of violence at their disposal.

The first thing you want to do is make sure that people see those signs. Then you have light signals or hand signals, you can tell people to slow down or to wait.

And then warning shots are probably the last resort before actually firing. And once you do fire, they're firing at the engine block because they want to disable the vehicle.

Your intent is not to kill the drivers but to stop the vehicle from approaching you any closer and having the ability to blow up your unit, your squad or the entire checkpoint.

MARGARET WARNER:

Mr. Abrahams, those sound like fairly reasonable and detailed procedures. I think we can — I don't know if we can stipulate, but most of the press has said that this happened to be one of those mobile checkpoints that had only been set up 90 minutes earlier so it wasn't well known.

But what more do you think U.S. soldiers could be doing to avoid, as you said, for people blundering into their own deaths?

FRED ABRAHAMS:

Well, I want to make one thing very clear. You know, our report did not conclude that U.S. soldiers were deliberately targeting civilians. And we did not find any evidence to suggest that.

MARGARET WARNER:

Yeah. I think he was talking about the Italian journalist who had made the accusation but go ahead.

FRED ABRAHAMS:

No. I understand but just to be clear, we were saying that the U.S. military is not doing everything it could to minimize civilian casualties as it is obliged to do under the law.

And, to be perfectly clear, Iraq is an extremely hostile environment. I certainly can't sit here in the comforts of Seattle and argue that it isn't. It's a dangerous place to be.

But that does not absolve the U.S. military from its legal obligations to use force only when absolutely necessary and to do so in a proportionate and discriminate manner.

And that is something we have not seen at checkpoints and other places. We've seen a pattern of what I would call indiscriminate fire and what I would say is a quick reliance on the use of lethal force.

And that's what is really disturbing us here. Concretely speaking, with checkpoints, I do believe there have been improvements. You know, there should be better lights and signs. I do think that is now the case.

But one point we've been pushing very hard is for accountability, because right now there are a lot of allegations of civilian deaths that are not being investigated.

And we believe that it's extremely important for there to be a climate of accountability where soldiers realize if they do use excessive force, there will be some investigation and some system of punishment if they are found to have violated the ROE, the Rules of Engagement.

Right now we don't see that. And I'm afraid that we could say there is a kind of climate of impunity in which soldiers feel like they can use lethal force without coming under review. That puts civilians at risk.

MARGARET WARNER:

Lt. Rieckhoff, respond to the two major points he just made. One that all too often soldiers do go to the last stage first, the use of lethal force.

And secondly, that they do so in a climate of impunity, of not believing that their actions are really going to be investigated and they'll be held to account.

PAUL RIECKHOFF:

Well, I think that's simply not true. And I think it's a failure to really understand the way the military works. There is a very high level of accountability.

And I think, if anything, the recent events at Abu Ghraib have heightened that level of accountability in practice and also in the minds of every soldier. Nobody wants to be in a situation like the soldiers were in Abu Ghraib.

PAUL RIECKHOFF:

And I think they try their best to behave responsibly. And when incidents do occur, there is accountability. There are often investigations following the death of any civilians.

Investigators are usually quick to respond. The statements of record are taken and all soldiers involved in the incident are called to provide an account of what happened.

And it's also the case that usually Iraqi civilians are also questioned to find out what exactly happened in that situation. But I think there's a tremendous amount of misunderstanding about what these soldiers are dealing with.

They use that bit of force as the last resort possible. They don't want that on their conscience. They don't want that on our country's responsibility. Nobody wants that type of image to be portrayed for American soldiers.

These are young kids who are in tremendously difficult areas. Many of them are probably retrained in the last few months to do these jobs. So you've probably got a young guy who is 19 years old on that checkpoint who may have been a truck driver a few months ago.

And the last thing he wants to do is shoot some civilians. So I think that's really, really not an accurate representation of what our soldiers are trying to do. That's the last resort.

MARGARET WARNER:

And let me just ask you from your own personal – let me just continue with the lieutenant for a minute. From your own personal experience I wonder if you ever (a) witnessed one of these incidents, (b), if it boiled down to a case of the Iraqis' version versus the Americans, what happened then?

I mean, were the Iraqis' versions given equal weight?

PAUL RIECKHOFF:

Well, we did unfortunately have incidents like this occur. There's a multitude of things that could have happened. The people could have not seen the signs.

The soldiers — I'm sure there are times when soldiers have fired too quickly. And they may or may not have been investigated, but I mean we had a drunk driver who was so drunk he could barely keep his car on the road who came barreling toward a checkpoint and violated all the signs, all the warnings.

And for the soldiers on the ground they don't have another alternative. They don't know that it's not a car bomb. So that was really a horrible incident for all these people experiencing it to try to involve themselves into.

But in those situations you do try to understand as many sides of the story as possible. And the Iraqis are given weight. There have been a number of incidents that have gotten quite a bit of press where soldiers have behaved inappropriately and have either hurt or killed Iraqis and they have been held accountable.

So I don't think that really does bear much weight. The soldiers are trying to do the best job they can. I think the Army is doing a better job. It's never perfect, and we understand that, but it's getting better.

MARGARET WARNER:

And, Mr. Molinari, briefly before we go, is there any evidence yet in terms of public opinion in Italy that this will affect the Italian government's willingness to or ability to maintain troops in Iraq?

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

Well, this is what the opposition of the central left is trying to do. The reaction of the opposition was in two different moments.

At the beginning, almost all of them were very much suggesting the idea of the ambush. Then after a couple of days, the leaders of the moderate parties of the coalition of the center left changed their point of view.

Now their approach, it's more cautious. While the leaders of the other parties, the more radical leftists, they are saying, writing and releasing statements speaking about the ambush.

And of course to speak about the ambush means to say to the public opinion we are in right place with the right guys and we have to go away. The pressure on the Italian government is going to rise.

MARGARET WARNER:

All right. But I think Prime Minister Berlusconi at least has said for now he doesn't plan to withdraw troops.

MAURIZIO MOLINARI:

Of course he will not.

MARGARET WARNER:

All right. Thank you all three very much.