This, if this is a true account of that battle in Samara, is bad:
A Combat Leader Gives The Inside Skinny Of The Biggest Battle Since The War Ended
[…] most of the casualties were civilians, not insurgents or criminals as being reported. During the
ambushes the tanks, brads and armored HUMVEES hosed down houses, buildings, and cars while using
reflexive fire against the attackers. One of the precepts of “Iron Hammer” is to use an Iron Fist when dealing with the insurgents. As the division spokesman is telling the press, we are responding with overwhelming firepower and are taking the fight to the enemy. The response to these well coordinated
ambushes was as a one would expect. The convoy continued to move, shooting at ANY target that appeared to be a threat. RPG fire from a house, the tank destroys the house with main gun fire and hoses the area down with 7.62 and 50cal MG fire. Rifle fire from an alley, the brads fire up the alley and fire up the surrounding buildings with 7.62mm and 25mm HE rounds. This was actually a rolling firefight through the entire town.The ROE under “Iron Fist” is such that the US soldiers are to consider buildings, homes, cars to be
hostile if enemy fire is received from them (regardless of who else is inside. It seems too many of us
this is more an act of desperation, rather than a well thought out tactic. We really don’t know if we kill
anyone, because we don’t stick around to find out. Since we armored troops and we are not trained to use counter-insurgency tactics; the logic is to respond to attacks using our superior firepower to kill the rebel insurgents. This is done in many cases knowing that there are people inside these buildings or cars who may not be connected to the insurgents.The belief in superior firepower as a counter-insurgency tactic is then extended down to the average
Iraqi, with the hope that the Iraqis will not support the guerillas and turn them in to coalition forces,
knowing we will blow the hell out of their homes or towns if they don’t. Of course in too many cases,
if the insurgents bait us and goad us into leveling buildings and homes, the people inside will then hate us (even if they did not before) and we have created more recruits for the guerillas.