When things are going well, the Bush Administration loves to take the solo credit for their accomplishments. But when things go wrong, they love to share the blame with others.
The US mistakenly dropped a 500-pound bomb on a house early Saturday, killing at least 5 people. The BBC report calls it an “embarrassing admission by US forces, who have been accused of killing many civilians during recent military operations in Iraq particularly in the Sunni Muslim city of Falluja in November”.
The BBC seems to commend the US for taking the blame for the incident, but if you read the article on CNN, you’ll see excerpts from the US Military statement:
“At least five people were killed when a coalition F-16 bombed the wrong target south of Mosul, Iraq”
“U.S.-led multinational forces were searching for an insurgent cell leader and targeted a house, which was struck by a 500-pound bomb”
“Multi-National Force-Iraq deeply regrets the loss of possibly innocent lives”
The statement attempts to distribute the blame among all forces in Iraq. Let’s not forget that this was a US F16 jet and the US makes up approximately 85% of the number of troops in Iraq, with approximately 138,000 troops deployed to Iraq.