thedrifter
03-09-03, 08:03 AM
Avoiding Civilian Casualties
Marines Test Their Wits With the What-Ifs of War
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 9, 2003; Page A22
CAMP BOUGAINVILLE, Kuwait -- A military convoy comes across a school and a hospital. Suddenly shots erupt. "You're taking fire from there, lots of fire," narrated Maj. Mark Stainbrook. "You have to get through. Do you return fire?"
The Marines did not hesitate.
"Yes," several called out.
"Why?" Stainbrook asked.
"It's a threat to life."
That's right, he answered. But, he warned, "We can't direct fire against civilian targets without pre-knowledge that there are weapons there. We don't want to kill civilians unnecessarily."
In a tent in the Kuwaiti desert, Stainbrook teaches a refresher course in the dos and don'ts of modern warfare. With just days or weeks until the play-acting could play out for real, he runs through the possibilities with 100 teenage and twentysomething warriors at a time, throwing out scenarios and testing their reactions. Parris Island -- the Marine Corps training base in South Carolina -- may have taught them to be killers, but it falls to civil affairs officers like Stainbrook to teach them when they should not be.
It is a delicate balance, all the more so in places like Iraq, where civilians -- some of whom may pose a threat -- may be found all over the battlefield. The government of President Saddam Hussein has passed out weapons to civilians and called on them to fight off invaders, yet the U.S. military expects to find hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting.
Success in distinguishing between civilian-soldiers and refugees may be key to the international perception and legacy of any U.S. invasion of Iraq. U.S. forces decisively defeated the Taliban government and disrupted the al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, but they generated negative reaction when they mistook villagers for the enemy. The military hopes to avoid a repeat in Iraq.
"Most conflicts we've been involved with in the United States have been without civilian interference," said Marine Maj. David Cooper, another civil affairs officer. "In this case, there are 25 million civilians in the way."
Stainbrook and Cooper, reservists called up as part of the Marines' 3rd Civil Affairs Group, spend their days teaching young infantrymen how to handle situations they may encounter. Originally designed for officers and senior enlisted personnel, the one-hour class has been opened to all Marines to drum home the lessons.
Cooper, 40, a software engineering manager at Sun Microsystems Inc. in Northern California, opens the class with a PowerPoint lecture about civil affairs units and their role in working with civilian populations. Civil affairs officers help establish relationships with local leaders, find ways to aid the neediest and collect information for combat commanders.
Stainbrook, 34, a Los Angeles police sergeant, then swoops in with a series of what-ifs that challenge the Marines to think about what might happen on the battlefield. The most common topic: how to tell a combatant from a noncombatant.
"They're thinking in their minds, 'I have to be aware of the enemy,' which of course is true," said Stainbrook, who grew up in Charles County. "But we have to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage."
During one class this week, Stainbrook presented a series of scenarios. In the first one, some Marines are leading a 20-vehicle convoy to resupply a unit that has been out of food and water for two days. They collide with a civilian vehicle, killing two people and injuring three others. What should the Marines do, he asked.
"Get medical to the injured people, sir," one answered.
Okay, Stainbrook said. What else?
"Keep the convoy moving, sir," answered another.
Stainbrook asked if they had any obligation to the injured civilians and the Marines agreed they did.
"Why?"
" 'Cause you caused the accident, sir," said one.
"What if you take fire?" Stainbrook asked.
"Throw our [casualties] in the back of the vehicle and keep going."
Stainbrook nodded in approval. He wanted them to think and react to the situation. "There's no one way to look at a problem," he told them.
In the next scenario, about 100 people who appear to be civilians are approaching on foot from 1,000 yards away. "What are you going to do?"
"Tell them to halt, sir," said a Marine.
"Do you know the word for 'stop'?" the major asked.
"Waqif," the Marine answered. Some soldiers and Marines have been given cards with basic Arabic words and phrases.
"What's the first thing we have to think of?" Stainbrook asked.
In this age of "force protection," several Marines knew the answer to that one and piped up in unison: "Security."
Stainbrook asked how many had seen "Black Hawk Down", the movie about the 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, that left 19 U.S. servicemen dead. Almost every hand went up. Did they remember how the Somali militia fighters used civilians as human shields when they fired at U.S. soldiers?
With that in mind, he returned to the scenario with the approaching Iraqis. "How are you going to keep them from your position without overreacting?"
"Send someone to go out and meet them," a Marine said.
Stainbrook then ran through advice on how to interact with Iraqis without offending them. Always speak with the oldest man, not the women. Accept a cup of tea if they offer it. Look at the Iraqis when speaking to them, not at the interpreter.
He brought up a Marine to stand next to him and then stepped up close, prompting the startled young man to step back.
"In Arab cultures, they're very into close contact," Stainbrook explained. "They may stand closer to you than you feel comfortable."
The bottom line, the instructors noted again and again, was that U.S. soldiers must liberate Iraqis, not antagonize them. The task is more than simply defeating another army.
"It definitely registers, they can definitely see the problem," Cooper said afterward. "Going back to the American psyche, we like to see ourselves as the knights on white horses. We don't like to see ourselves as the bullies."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Sempers,
Roger
Marines Test Their Wits With the What-Ifs of War
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 9, 2003; Page A22
CAMP BOUGAINVILLE, Kuwait -- A military convoy comes across a school and a hospital. Suddenly shots erupt. "You're taking fire from there, lots of fire," narrated Maj. Mark Stainbrook. "You have to get through. Do you return fire?"
The Marines did not hesitate.
"Yes," several called out.
"Why?" Stainbrook asked.
"It's a threat to life."
That's right, he answered. But, he warned, "We can't direct fire against civilian targets without pre-knowledge that there are weapons there. We don't want to kill civilians unnecessarily."
In a tent in the Kuwaiti desert, Stainbrook teaches a refresher course in the dos and don'ts of modern warfare. With just days or weeks until the play-acting could play out for real, he runs through the possibilities with 100 teenage and twentysomething warriors at a time, throwing out scenarios and testing their reactions. Parris Island -- the Marine Corps training base in South Carolina -- may have taught them to be killers, but it falls to civil affairs officers like Stainbrook to teach them when they should not be.
It is a delicate balance, all the more so in places like Iraq, where civilians -- some of whom may pose a threat -- may be found all over the battlefield. The government of President Saddam Hussein has passed out weapons to civilians and called on them to fight off invaders, yet the U.S. military expects to find hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting.
Success in distinguishing between civilian-soldiers and refugees may be key to the international perception and legacy of any U.S. invasion of Iraq. U.S. forces decisively defeated the Taliban government and disrupted the al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, but they generated negative reaction when they mistook villagers for the enemy. The military hopes to avoid a repeat in Iraq.
"Most conflicts we've been involved with in the United States have been without civilian interference," said Marine Maj. David Cooper, another civil affairs officer. "In this case, there are 25 million civilians in the way."
Stainbrook and Cooper, reservists called up as part of the Marines' 3rd Civil Affairs Group, spend their days teaching young infantrymen how to handle situations they may encounter. Originally designed for officers and senior enlisted personnel, the one-hour class has been opened to all Marines to drum home the lessons.
Cooper, 40, a software engineering manager at Sun Microsystems Inc. in Northern California, opens the class with a PowerPoint lecture about civil affairs units and their role in working with civilian populations. Civil affairs officers help establish relationships with local leaders, find ways to aid the neediest and collect information for combat commanders.
Stainbrook, 34, a Los Angeles police sergeant, then swoops in with a series of what-ifs that challenge the Marines to think about what might happen on the battlefield. The most common topic: how to tell a combatant from a noncombatant.
"They're thinking in their minds, 'I have to be aware of the enemy,' which of course is true," said Stainbrook, who grew up in Charles County. "But we have to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage."
During one class this week, Stainbrook presented a series of scenarios. In the first one, some Marines are leading a 20-vehicle convoy to resupply a unit that has been out of food and water for two days. They collide with a civilian vehicle, killing two people and injuring three others. What should the Marines do, he asked.
"Get medical to the injured people, sir," one answered.
Okay, Stainbrook said. What else?
"Keep the convoy moving, sir," answered another.
Stainbrook asked if they had any obligation to the injured civilians and the Marines agreed they did.
"Why?"
" 'Cause you caused the accident, sir," said one.
"What if you take fire?" Stainbrook asked.
"Throw our [casualties] in the back of the vehicle and keep going."
Stainbrook nodded in approval. He wanted them to think and react to the situation. "There's no one way to look at a problem," he told them.
In the next scenario, about 100 people who appear to be civilians are approaching on foot from 1,000 yards away. "What are you going to do?"
"Tell them to halt, sir," said a Marine.
"Do you know the word for 'stop'?" the major asked.
"Waqif," the Marine answered. Some soldiers and Marines have been given cards with basic Arabic words and phrases.
"What's the first thing we have to think of?" Stainbrook asked.
In this age of "force protection," several Marines knew the answer to that one and piped up in unison: "Security."
Stainbrook asked how many had seen "Black Hawk Down", the movie about the 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, that left 19 U.S. servicemen dead. Almost every hand went up. Did they remember how the Somali militia fighters used civilians as human shields when they fired at U.S. soldiers?
With that in mind, he returned to the scenario with the approaching Iraqis. "How are you going to keep them from your position without overreacting?"
"Send someone to go out and meet them," a Marine said.
Stainbrook then ran through advice on how to interact with Iraqis without offending them. Always speak with the oldest man, not the women. Accept a cup of tea if they offer it. Look at the Iraqis when speaking to them, not at the interpreter.
He brought up a Marine to stand next to him and then stepped up close, prompting the startled young man to step back.
"In Arab cultures, they're very into close contact," Stainbrook explained. "They may stand closer to you than you feel comfortable."
The bottom line, the instructors noted again and again, was that U.S. soldiers must liberate Iraqis, not antagonize them. The task is more than simply defeating another army.
"It definitely registers, they can definitely see the problem," Cooper said afterward. "Going back to the American psyche, we like to see ourselves as the knights on white horses. We don't like to see ourselves as the bullies."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Sempers,
Roger