IRAQI BATTALION, ACCUSED OF COWARDICE, CLEARED

Iraqi Commander Ordered Confusing War Games Manuever During Pitched Fight

BASR, IRAQ - 4/13/08 When US Army Rangers discovered six thousand missing Iraqi soldiers and their commander hiding behind a hill outside of the battle torn southern city of Basr on Sunday it seemed another disheartening case of Iraqi ‘cutting and running’ under fire. But a Pentagon investigation underway since then suggests poor lines of communication, and not cowardice, were to blame.

US Army personnel first discovered the men missing after coming under heavy mortar fire at dawn Sunday. The Iraqi Army’s 10th Battalion should have responded to the fire from their forward positions within moments. But US radio operator Corporal Lance Wilson said he couldn’t raise his Iraqi counterparts via established channels.

“I called several times, indicating a ‘Code 7’,” Wilson said. “A ‘Code 7’ is a critical situation whereby you are coming under enemy fire. It’s worse than a ‘Code 6’, danger-wise, but not nearly as bad as a ‘Code 8.’”

“Each time I called all I could here was whispering,” Wilson said. “Like, Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhh. Then nothin’.”

An American patrol moved forward and found the Iraqi positions empty. Drone planes soon spotted an unusual concentration of people behind the nearby hill, more than 1 kilometer, or half a mile, from the area of intense fighting.

US Army Major Buck Talward sped to the scene. “This was their fight and I was furious.,” he later told a reporter. “I found them all behind the hill, six thousand men covering their eyes with their hands. It was disgusting. You could see that many of them were peaking a little between their fingers.”

“Just what in the fuckin’ hell of this fuck-shorn desert of a fuck do you think you’re doing?” Talward recalls asking his Iraqi counterpart, Commander Tafik Kili. “And Kili looks me square in the eyes and says, ‘You’re it!’ and tags me on the arm. I nearly fell off the shitter. They were playing war games. But they’d got all the rules messed up.”

Pentagon spokeswoman Nancy Wells tried to shed light on the mix up from Washington today. She said the incident made it clear that Iraq’s fledgling army still has not been adequately trained in how and when to engage in war games, those periodic exercises designed to improve fighting readiness.

“Since 2004 Iraq Army soldiers have been training in various war games, including Beach Invasion, Jungle Attack and Tag. Some units have received further training in Hide and Seek, Man Hunt and Ghost in the Graveyard. Iraqi troops under British control have emphasized Red Rover, Red Rover and British Bull Dog.”

Referring to Sunday’s incident Wells said, “It appears the Iraqi Command inappropriately mixed two games, Hide and Seek and Tag. That would explain both the hiding and the universally accepted ‘you’re it’ phrase associated with Tag. What Iraqi leadership must understand,” she added, “is that if you’re caught hiding you don’t tag the other party, they tag you. Also, in the case of hide and seek the hiders don’t generally cover their eyes. And if the seeker peeks between his fingers while counting to 10 that is considered cheating.”

This is not the first time Iraqi troops have incorrectly deployed war games on the ground. Last year in normally quiet Mosul two platoons of Iraqi soldiers were mowed down by insurgent fighters in an exposed public square after the platoons’ leader ordered his men to ‘freeze’ during an impromptu game of Red Light, Green Light, 123.

The Pentagon is now reviewing whether to limit Iraqi war games to I’m Thinking of Something and Duck, Duck, Goose.