Annother Friendly Fire Attack

Canadians dispute details of Iraq shooting

By BETH GORHAM
Wednesday, February 1, 2006 Posted at 6:32 PM EST
Canadian Presss

Washington — U.S. officials didn't apologize Wednesday but said they're investigating a “regrettable” incident in which soldiers fired at a car carrying four Canadian diplomats in Baghdad.

Canadians are disputing a U.S. version of events, saying a military convoy fired at them without warning, with one bullet coming dangerously close. No one was injured.

“Our officials are clear that they were operating within the rules,” prime minister-designate Stephen Harper said in Ottawa. “Obviously, we'd like to make sure we deal with this and avoid such a situation in the future.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Pentagon is determined to find out “exactly what happened.”

“Nobody, our soldiers and our security personnel, certainly don't want to fire on innocent people, certainly not close friends and allies.”

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he didn't know the details of the event Tuesday involving two convoys in the city's heavily fortified Green Zone.

But a military spokesman in Iraq said Wednesday the U.S. convoy “felt threatened” by a potential suicide-bomb attack after the Canadian vehicle came too close and ignored hand and arm signals to stay back.

“They felt they had to use warning shots,” said U.S. Lt.-Col. Barry Johnson, spokesman for the multinational force in Baghdad.

“Clearly, these warning shots weren't aimed at the occupants.”

A U.S. military statement said the shots were aimed “at the front of the vehicle, away from the passenger area.”

But one unnamed Canadian diplomat riding in the vehicle told CBC News a bullet entered the passenger compartment. She said the vehicle had kept a safe distance from the convoy and no one remembers any warnings from U.S. soldiers before there was a sudden explosion.

The vehicle carried the charge d'affaires to Iraq, Stewart Henderson, and three others plus a driver.

The U.S. convoy had pulled off to the side of the road and was several lanes from the Canadian vehicle behind a waist-high cement barrier when the shots occurred, the diplomat said.

The vehicle was reported outfitted with Canadian flags.

“I'm not trying to say that in the end it won't be found out that it was obvious that this was a diplomatic convoy,” said Mr. McCormack.

“But we don't know that now.”

The Green Zone includes the headquarters of the U.S. military and houses the Iraqi government and diplomats.

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WASHINGTON — Inside the white Envoy with a Maple Leaf flag plastered to the windshield, the first inkling that a routine daily trip for Canadian diplomats in Baghdad had gone nightmarishly wrong sounded like an explosion.

"It wasn't until we noticed the car was filled with gunpowder and dust and debris, and we looked around and saw the gunshots on the hood and the cracked windshield that we realized, 'oh crap, we were shot at,' " said Michelle Cameron, one of the four Canadians inside the SUV when a U.S. gunner opened fire on them inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on Tuesday.

The U.S. military's version is starkly different and irreconcilable with the Canadian story of being fired on without warning or reason. A joint investigation to determine which version is correct is under way.

Ms. Cameron is a Ankara-based consular officer who has been in Baghdad working to free two Canadian peace activists held hostage by a shadowy Islamic group. She has provided the most detailed and only first-person account of how a routine trip turned suddenly into a near-fatal case of friendly fire as U.S. troops unleashed a machine gun burst at the Canadian vehicle.

As the dust settled and the shaken Canadians realized they were unhurt, a U.S. soldier approached. He asked whether everyone was okay, Ms. Cameron said.

"So we introduced him to the acting ambassador and he apologized."

In the car along with three other Canadians was chargé d'affaires Stewart Henderson.

"We just so weren't expecting the convoy to open up on us," Ms. Cameron said. She had been back in Baghdad for several weeks after spending a month there earlier, so she is familiar both with the dangers and the special driver etiquette required to operate safely in close proximity to heavily armed military convoys.

Diplomats and others stationed in the Green Zone, including the Canadians who were shot at Tuesday, go to a special driving school to learn how to behave around military convoys.

"Basically, you are learning how not to get shot," she said. "You have to take an orientation course in how to drive, then you have a week when you're a student driver riding as the passenger to an experienced driver, and then you take a two-hour driving test."

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"Our driver had taken that course and he had been driving in the Green Zone for months, so immediately when the explosions rang out, while those of us in the back seat put our heads down as the shrapnel hit, our driver put on the brakes," Ms. Cameron said.

The white Envoy was travelling very slowly when it was hit by the gunfire. "It's interesting to note there were no skid marks, which gives you an idea of how slow we were going," she said.

The U.S. story is that the Canadian vehicle was speeding and tried to pass the U.S. convoy. Soldiers in the "rear vehicle of the convoy noticed a vehicle speeding toward the convoy," U.S. Marine Major Tim Keefe said yesterday from Baghdad. A soldier "gave hand signals to stay back," and when those were ignored he "fired a warning burst aimed at the front of the vehicle away from the passenger compartment," he said.

While the U.S. account portrays reckless driving that could reasonably have been interpreted as an unfolding suicide attack, Ms. Cameron's account, backed by other Canadian officials, paints an entirely different picture of trigger-happy Americans needlessly firing on a well-marked vehicle.

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Lynn226 said:

I would not have know about this incident if I didn't read cbc.ca everyday. I don't remember seeing anything about this on U.S. based new stations.

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