Pentagon still rebuffs co-operation in Cpl Mattie Hull inquest

PENTAGON STILL REBUFFS CO-OPERATION IN CPL. MATTIE HULL INQUEST
by Jamie Miller

The story of the inquest into the death of Corporal Mattie Hull continues to play out with the US news media largely ignoring it and the anger and repercussions the case rising in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Except in Idaho, the courtroom dramas surrounding Anna Nicole Smith’s death might be judged to be vastly more important, based on media coverage received. This is perhaps natural, for Cpl. Hull was British and was killed in Iraq. The story has some importance in the UK, though, because he was killed by his allies, the Americans. These ironically-named “Friendly Fire” incidents are common in war, and studies suggest that some 15 per cent of all deaths can be attributed to them over the past century. The most notable case in the US was that of Pat Tillman, the NFL star who was killed in Afghanistan. That story was cleverly spun by the Bush Administration into a useful media play that has little relation to reality, according to his mother. That worked on the American public, but this time, the British see things differently, mainly because of the surpassing stupidity of the Bush regime’s response. The British media also seem less cowed by Bush than do their US corporate counterparts.

For the details, you can Google Cpl Hull’s name and read the online sources like Guardian.uk or Times of London, but broadly what happened was that Cpl. Hull was on patrol in a properly recognition-marked British tank on March 28, 2003 when two US A-10 attack fighters from an Idaho National Guard unit hit them. The A-10 is a potent weapon: It carries a cannon that fires 1.2 inch diameter projectiles at a rate so fast that, instead of going “rat-tat-tat” like we imagine, it sounds an extremely loud note the pitch of the second B-flat from the bottom on a piano. The wonder is that, once the A-10s put their sights on the tank columm the first time, only Cpl Hull died. But this was the pilot’s first actual mission and perhaps they were too excited to aim well. Even with two passes, they killed only one “friendly”.

This might have been just been one more tragedy in this costly Oil War, but the British are apparently not so callous in the face of death as we are, and they are trying to hold an inquest. That they want to do so shouldn’t be hard to understand: Over here, when there’s a crime, the need for “closure” is invoked for everything up to and including calls for the death penalty, but Hull’s mother and widow simply want to know why and how we killed him. But, instead of making the humane gesture of stepping forward and helping them come to terms with their loss, Bush and Co. tried to treat them as they do us, by stonewalling. For four years, that nameless, faceless “Pentagon” refused to provide information from the American side and even claimed that there were no gunsight or communications tapes from the A-10s. Then tapes were leaked to the British press and the US was, once again, caught in a lie. A PR man finally emerged from the Pentagon and said that the case was “unique” and “sensitive” and could not be talked about, and then he crawled back in.

It certainly wasn’t “unique”. In at least one other killing of an ally, a two-man British “Tornado” aircraft on patrol was destroyed by a US anti-aircraft missile. That was a bit careless because at that point the Iraqi airforce had essentially ceased to exist and the chance of that radar blip being an enemy aircraft was essentially nonexistent. “Sensitive”? Why? And why hide it behind Bush’s wall of secrecy? Why didn’t they just show actual sensitivity and contrition? After all, we ask for “contrition” from a condemned murderer going to the gas chamber, so why not offer it in this regrettable but somewhat understandable case? To their everlasting credit, newspapers across Idaho and the northwest expressed their regrets and condolences, since an Idaho Air Guard unit was involved. But most of the US media have passed over the story to concentrate on the vastly tragic Anna Nicole case.

No matter. British public opinion is hardly important to us. Or is it? You should be aware that their Prime Minister doesn’t stand for election every four years like clockwork, as does our Emperor. Elections are triggered by various situations, and Tony Blair will almost surely be replaced in June or July. How angry would the UK populace need be to elect a PM and government that would refuse to continue acting as Bush’s “Attack Poodle”, and would instead withdraw all of their forces? That would leave Bush’s much-ballyhooed “coalition” with only two countries, Australia and South Korea, providing more than 1,000 troops. Other nations’ contributions range downward to the 12 troops from Moldova and 29 from Kazakhstan. It would seem not at all intelligent of Bush et al to treat our most valuable ally so shabbily.

Why do they do it? Why the secrecy, when both adversaries and newspaper readers in Britain already know so much that we don’t? Is it fear that American voters will actually demand explanations for items like the $9Billion in Iraq rebuilding funds that simply disappeared, while troops were left to buy their own body armor? Is it fear that we might see through the charade of the Tillman case? Fear that we might actually demand answers about Dick Cheney’s secret energy task force and its relationship to the push for the awarding of Iraqi oil development contracts to foreign firms?

The right-wing talk-radio types continue to attack anyone who questions the conduct of the war, be they Democrats in congress, soldiers refusing re-deployment, the media, protesters, even innocuous writers like me. Their usual response is, to quote Bill O’Reilly’s most intelligent and witty words, “Shut Up.” I submit that what is destroying this nation and its future is the Pentagon and its secrecy and silence. Ultimately, the enemy is Bush and Cheney and Rice and Gonzales and Gates and . . .