Pilot Guilty in Soldiers’ Deaths in Afghanistan

A U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who mistakenly bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002, killing four, was found guilty Tuesday of dereliction of duty and was reprimanded and docked a month’s pay, about $5,700.

Maj. Harry Schmidt, 38, “acted shamefully” during the episode, “exhibiting arrogance and a lack of flight discipline,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson wrote in the reprimand.

Schmidt, a former instructor at the Navy’s “Top Gun” fighter pilot school, had blamed the bombing on the “fog of war,” saying he mistook the Canadians’ gunfire for an attack by Taliban forces. He said his superiors had never told him that the Canadians would be conducting live-fire exercises near Kandahar airport that night.

He was originally charged with manslaughter and aggravated assault, but the charges were reduced last year to dereliction of duty.

Carlson said Schmidt had become impatient waiting for permission from air controllers to attack what he thought was Taliban artillery. He was warned to “make sure it’s not friendlies” before firing.

The reprimand said Schmidt should have taken evasive action rather than attack and accused him of lying about his motivation for the bombing, using “the inherent right of self-defense as an excuse to wage your own war.”

Schmidt’s mission commander, Maj. William Umbach, who was in a second F-16, also was charged with assault and manslaughter. Those charges were dismissed last summer. He was reprimanded for “leadership failures” and allowed to retire.

The case against the two Illinois National Guardsmen has been closely watched in Canada, where many were outraged by the bombing and the two days it took President Bush to publicly apologize.

The four soldiers who died were the first Canadians killed in combat since the Korean War. Eight others were wounded.

Maureen Decaire, mother of one of the Canadians injured in the bombing, said she understood that Schmidt did not intend to cause harm, but that the decision still left her unsatisfied.

“I would like to see him accept responsibility, which I don’t think has happened,” she said from Winnipeg.