For U.S. troops, it's hard to know who is friend and who is foe

For U.S. troops, it's hard to know who is friend and who is foe
Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
By Tom Lasseter
June 05, 2006

MUSAYYIB, Iraq - Air Force Staff Sgt. Justin Cremer listened carefully as Army Capt. Irvin Oliver described the upcoming mission. They'd raid a compound of houses the next morning; a map was sketched on the ground in chalk lines of yellow, blue and white.

Oliver looked at the soldiers bunched around him and reminded them that aerial photographs had showed at least 17 people in the compound the night before, and that they were looking for just one - an insurgent cell leader suspected of orchestrating roadside bombs that'd killed American soldiers.

Be careful, Oliver told his men, not to get shot. And be careful, the company commander said, not to shoot any unarmed civilians.

Despite those warnings, last Thursday's mission would serve as a reminder that counterinsurgency is among the most complex forms of warfare, and sometimes the wrong people are killed.

...

'They (the jets) look for anything suspicious, but everything's suspicious around here,' said Lott, 25, of Clarkesville, Tenn. 'It's a big game of hide and seek. You're fighting people where you can't tell who's who. You can't tell the good guys from the bad guys in Iraq.'

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