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>From: Elizabeth Sanders <mes14@cornell.edu> > >In answer to the last question by Steve Maynard, the response of >Edwin Moise is a good example of what an attempt to provide a >straightforward, unbiased explanation of an incident would look like. I thank Sanders for the kind words. >But in this particular case, I still have questions. The Palestine Hotel >was full of journalists and diplomats, and the US military commanders were >well aware of that. Why assume a man with binoculars is a sniper >assistant, and not simply a journalist observing the war from a >(presumably) safe place, in order to report back home? The problem is with that phrase "the US military commanders." What was necessary was for commanders at the small-unit level (in this case, the key man was the commander of A Company, 4/64 Armor) to know that there were journalists in the Palestine Hotel, and to know which of the buildings in their vicinity was the Palestine Hotel. The brigade commander (that is two levels up the chain of command) was trying to obtain a description of the Palestine Hotel, clear enough so that he could issue a warning to small-unit commanders not to shoot at the Palestine Hotel, and they would be able to figure out which of the buildings in their area was the one they were being told not to shoot at. I don't think the necessary clear description had been obtained, by the time of the incident. >And why would >people in an Abrams tank, which is nearly invulnerable as I understand it, >fear an RPG to the extent that they had to blast away at a dubious target >in a hotel full of civilians? This supposes that all the Americans in the fight were safely inside the armor of Abrams tanks; I doubt this was the case. It also assumes that the Iraqis had nothing more powerful than RPGs. Maybe they had nothing better than RPGs, but maybe they also had some "Kornet" anti-tank missiles. Which is why I said, in my first post on this thread, that the Iraqis had RPGs "and perhaps even heavier weapons." >My military informant tells me an RPG grenade would simply bounce off an >Abrams tank. Slight exaggeration. I don't think an RPG can go through the armor of an Abrams to get the men inside _if_ they are all safely inside the armor, but an RPG can damage the tank. Ed Moise
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