DURING a training mission on November 4, a US pilot in an air national guard F16 fighter jet fired 25 rounds of 20mm ammunition through the roof and into the car park of the Little Egg Harbour intermediate school in New Jersey.
The school is three-and-a-half miles from the target in the Warren Grove firing range. Luckily, it was 11pm and no-one was present.
However, this is not the first targeting error. Errant practice bombs were blamed for forest fires that burned more than 11,000 acres of the Pine Barrens near the range in 1999 and more than 1,600 acres in 2002.
These errors make collateral damage - the euphemism for the murder and mutilation of innocent civilians - a tragic inevitability.
What chance do the citizens of Fallujah have? How can the assault be allowed to proceed?
I thought that civilians in occupied territory were subject to Geneva convention IV, article 27, which states that protected persons - the Iraqi population in this case - "shall be at all times humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against acts of violence."
It is time for a war crimes tribunal, with Bush and Blair in the dock.
DAVE EDWARDS Doncaster
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