US Conducted Targeted Killings with Significant Civilian Casualties

The next time the comPost, our State Department or the U.N. demonize Israel for the targeted killings of terrorists, refer to this article in the New York Times.....and keep in mind that Israel's strikes have largely been successful, with few civilian casualties.

Here are some excerpts:

Errors Are Seen in Early Attacks on Iraqi Leaders
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: June 13, 2004


WASHINGTON, June 12 — The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

Only a few of the 50 airstrikes have been described in public. All were unsuccessful, and many, including the two well-known raids on Saddam Hussein and his sons, appear to have been undercut by poor intelligence, current and former government officials said.
The strikes, carried out against so-called high-value targets during a one-month period that began on March 19, 2003, used precision-guided munitions against at least 13 Iraqi leaders, including Gen. Izzat Ibrahim, Iraq's No. 2 official, the officials said.

An explicit account of the zero for 50 record in strikes on high-value targets was provided by Marc Garlasco, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who headed the joint staff's high-value targeting cell during the war. Mr. Garlasco is now a senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, and he was a primary author of the December report, "Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq."

General Moseley, the top Air Force commander during the war who is now the Air Force vice chief of staff, said in the interview last summer that commanders were required to obtain advance approval from Mr. Rumsfeld if any planned airstrike was likely to result in the deaths of 30 more civilians. More than 50 such raids were proposed, and all were approved, General Moseley said.

The four case studies examined by the organization included the failed March 19, 2003, strike on Mr. Hussein and his sons at Dora Farms, which it said killed a civilian. According to Human Rights Watch, a failed April 5 strike that singled out General Majid in a residential area of Basra killed 17 civilians; a failed April 8 strike that was aimed at Mr. Hussein's half brother Watban Ibrahim Barzan in Baghdad killed 6 civilians; and the second raid on Mr. Hussein and one or both of his sons, on April 7 in the Mansur district of Baghdad, killed an estimated 18 civilians.

Can you imagine how the world, lead by the comPost, would react if Israeli pilots killed 18 civilians and missed their target?

Do you think this will change attitudes toward Israel.....we can dream it can't we?