U.S. deaths in drone strike due to miscommunication, report says - latimes.com

U.S. deaths in drone strike due to miscommunication, report says - latimes.com: "By David Zucchino and David S. Cloud,

Los Angeles Times
October 14, 2011, 9:15 p.m.
Reporting from Washington— A Marine and a Navy medic killed by a U.S. drone airstrike were targeted when Marine commanders in Afghanistan mistook them for Taliban fighters, even though analysts watching the Predator's video feed were uncertain whether the men were part of an enemy force.

Those are the findings of a Pentagon investigation of the first known case of friendly fire deaths involving an unmanned aircraft, the April 6 attack that killed Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, and Navy Hospitalman Benjamin D. Rast, 23.

The 381-page report, which has not been released, concludes that the Marine officers on the scene and the Air Force crew controlling the drone from half a world away were unaware that analysts watching the firefight unfold via live video at a third location had doubts about the targets' identity.

The incident closely resembles another deadly mistake involving a Predator in early 2009. In that attack, at least 15 Afghan civilians were killed after a Predator crew mistook them for a group of Taliban preparing to attack a U.S. special forces unit.

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The report blames the attack on a fatal mix of poor communications, faulty assumptions and "a lack of overall common situational awareness." It recommends that a Marine lieutenant and two sergeants in Smith's platoon be "formally counseled" and suggests detailed reviews of battlefield procedures, but it said no one involved in the attack was "culpably negligent or derelict in their duties."

"The chain of events … was initiated by the on-scene ground force commander's lack of overall situational awareness and inability to accurately communicate his friendly force disposition in relation to the enemy," the report said.

The report blames the attack on a fatal mix of poor communications, faulty assumptions and "a lack of overall common situational awareness." It recommends that a Marine lieutenant and two sergeants in Smith's platoon be "formally counseled" and suggests detailed reviews of battlefield procedures, but it said no one involved in the attack was "culpably negligent or derelict in their duties."

"The chain of events … was initiated by the on-scene ground force commander's lack of overall situational awareness and inability to accurately communicate his friendly force disposition in relation to the enemy," the report said. "