Report Details ‘Friendly Fire’ Casualties in Deadly Battle

As many as 10 Marines may have been killed by friendly fire in the midst of the deadliest battle of the Iraq war when a Marine air controller mistakenly cleared Air Force A-10 jets to shoot on U.S. positions, according to a long-awaited military investigation.

The report, portions of which were obtained by The Times on Saturday, paints a chaotic picture of the March 23, 2003, battle in the southern Iraq city of Nasiriyah, as Marines fought to seize two bridges crucial to the American advance on Baghdad.

When Marine units around the city lost communication, commanders became confused about the location of American troops. Two tank-busting jets were given permission by a controller to attack what turned out to be a forward Marine company. The documents describe 15 minutes of air attacks on the friendly forces using 30-millimeter Gatling guns, Maverick missiles and bombs, ending in the destruction of two amphibious assault vehicles that were trying to evacuate wounded Marines.

The full report, running hundreds of pages, is scheduled to be released this week.

In contrast to the descriptions of precision bombing that have come to define the American military, Marine and Air Force investigators documented a chain of faulty battlefield assumptions by the Marine forward air controller and other commanders who did not know where their troops were arrayed on the battlefield and had scant means of communicating during the fight.

In all, 18 Marines were killed, including four Californians, and 17 were wounded during three hours of intense fighting with Iraqi army troops and militiamen.

“The A-10s targeted what turned out to be” U.S. Marines, the report states, “making multiple passes against them.

“Eventually, the A-10s were told to cease fire, which they did.”

Of the 18 killed, the investigation found that eight had died “solely” as the result of enemy fire. But it added, “the intensity of the enemy fire, combined with friendly fire, makes it impossible to conclusively determine the exact sequence and source of fires that killed the other 10 Marines.” The Marines who might have been killed by friendly fire were not identified in the documents obtained by The Times. Of the 17 Marines wounded in the battle, four were hit by a combination of enemy and friendly fire, the investigation found.

In a carefully choreographed release, the nearly 900-page report was presented Saturday in briefings to relatives of Marines who had died that day. The emotional, and sometimes tense, sessions unfolded simultaneously in living rooms from Southern California to Connecticut.

Some relatives welcomed the briefings, saying the process would help them move on. Others said the report left painful questions unanswered.

Larry Hutchings, 52, of Boiling Springs, S.C., was told that his son, Cpl. Nolen Hutchings, had died in a Marine vehicle hit by both a U.S. missile and an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade. “They don’t know which hit it first,” he said.

The A-10s are equipped with gun cameras that take pictures of what they are shooting, but Hutchings said he had been told that the film no longer existed. “They said they were recorded over accidentally,” he said.

Like many other family members, Hutchings questioned why the report had taken so long to release. He said a Marine officer had told him Saturday that the investigation had “sat on somebody’s desk” for four months.

“He didn’t have an explanation for that,” Hutchings said.

Two casualty officers delivered the news in a Rialto living room to Lance Cpl. Jorge Gonzalez’s parents, Mario and Rosa, and the Marine’s widow, Jasty Gonzalez.

Amid countless photos of Gonzalez, the Marines told the family that Gonzalez had died from enemy fire, suffering extensive damage to his legs and head. His 1-year-old son, who was born after Gonzalez left for the Persian Gulf, played in the family’s living room during the briefing.

Rosa Gonzalez, the Marine’s mother, expressed anger before the briefing even began. “What’s insulting is that it took a year for this,” she said

Marine Capt. Matthew Bucher then explained the sequence of the battle. “He had passed on at a point before the Air Force jets showed up,” Bucher said. “Your son was killed by Iraqi enemy fire. He was killed by what’s called indirect fire from the enemy. An enemy mortar man was the cause of your son’s death, not friendly fire.” Gonzalez’s death appeared to have been very quick, he said.

The Marines told the tearful mother that neither her son’s body, nor the position the Americans had taken, had ever been lost to Iraqis, trying to allay a fear that has haunted Gonzalez’s parents since they saw televised footage that showed dead servicemen and thought they saw their son.

Between heaving sobs, Rosa Gonzalez expressed in her basic English some relief that, at long last, she was being told that her son had died from enemy fire. She asked the casualty officers why the military hadn’t sent in tanks or laid down air strikes before sending her son’s company to the bridge. There were still Iraqi civilians living in nearby homes who had never been evacuated by the Iraqi government, the family was told.

The Marine’s wife said that, after hearing stories from Marines who had fought in Nasiriyah, she had feared that her husband had been struck by aircraft fire. “I was expecting to hear, ‘I’m sorry, but he was killed by the A-10,’ ” she said after being briefed. “I’m glad it wasn’t friendly fire. It would have made me furious if it had been.”

The battle for the bridges in Nasiriyah began early on March 23, the fourth day of the war. The mission for Charlie Company, part of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., was to secure a bridge across the Saddam Canal on the northern edge of the city. Controlling the span was essential to opening a route for a massive Marine Expeditionary Force to attack Baghdad.

Charlie Company, riding in a convoy of 11 amphibious assault vehicles, or tracks, ended up alone at the north bridge, with other units scattered at southern and eastern edges of the city.

As the surrounded company fought to hold the bridge, the Air Force A-10s began circling overhead. Initially, some of the Marines felt a sense of relief; American firepower was at hand. But the planes turned against them.

A Marine forward air controller, stationed with a unit southeast of the bridge, cleared two A-10 attack jets to fire upon vehicles north of the bridge. The controller believed he was with the lead Marine unit and that only Iraqis were north of the canal, according to a separate Air Force report on the incident, which was included with the military investigation.

The air controller, responsible for directing jets in support of ground troops, did not realize that Charlie Company had seized the bridge, as ordered, and assumed positions to its north, the Air Force report states.

When he cleared the jets to attack targets north of the bridge, the forward air controller could see neither the jets nor the targets.

The controller, the report states, notified the A-10s “that no friendlies were north ... of the canal.”

The two jets then dropped three bombs on Marines’ positions, the report states. But Marines on the ground, apparently mistaking the bomb explosions for Iraqi mortar fire, did not realize they were under attack by U.S. aircraft until the A-10s began firing at them with their rapid-fire 30-millimeter guns, the report states.

“Numerous witnesses stated that they saw Marines killed or struck by 30-millimeter rounds” and heard or saw Marine amphibious assault vehicles struck by 30-millimeter rounds, the report states, adding that the Marines tried to fire “doctrinal ordnance” to alert the jets that they were attacking friendly positions -- to no avail.

Then, as Marines began evacuating wounded from the battlefield by driving four amphibious assault vehicles back across the bridge to the south, they were attacked again by both A-10s.

The pilots told investigators, according to the Air Force report, that the Marine forward air controller had instructed them “not to let those vehicles get across the bridge.”

One of the jets attacked and hit one of the Marine vehicles with a Maverick missile 100 meters south of the bridge “and destroyed it.” The second jet fired a Maverick at a second Marine vehicle 200 meters south of the bridge and destroyed it as well.

The engagement ended when a platoon commander from Charlie Company finally managed to get a forward command post on the radio and reported that his men were under friendly fire assault. The forward air controller then ordered the jets to “ ‘check fire’ ... and told them that there may have been Marines north of the Saddam Canal,” the Air Force report states.