Grim's Hall

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

The LT G post that Eric linked to below is very troubling. That post appears to demonstrate a real lack of understanding of some important concepts within the rules of engagement (ROE). I want to stress the word “appears” because I am not currently deployed to Iraq and I do not know what guidance and/or instruction LT G may have received concerning the ROE. Furthermore, I was not there and did not see the situation develop. This post is not intended to be a critique of LT G. What follows is intended to address what I believe is a real misunderstanding of key concepts of ROE that is shockingly widespread.

LT G described a situation in which members of his unit observed individuals low crawling towards a road at midnight pushing a box. He then describes the hard decision making process he went through before telling his soldiers to flash a light at these individuals and fire at them if they ran. LT G’s order was overruled by his captain who forbade the soldiers from firing at the low crawling individuals unless those individuals fired first. The box turned out to be an improvised explosive device (IED).

As I understand the ROE, and as I instructed my Marines in Iraq, all of the above was unnecessary unless done for some other reason than simply complying with the ROE.

Let me start with some concepts and definitions. Under the Joint Chiefs of Staff Standing Rules of Engagement armed force is authorized to deter, neutralize, or destroy individuals or organizations committing hostile acts or demonstrating hostile intent.

A hostile act is defined as “an attack or other use of force by a foreign force or terrorist unit (organization or individual) against the United States, U.S. forces, and in certain circumstance, U.S. citizens, their property, U.S. commercial assets, and other designated non-U.S. forces, foreign nationals and their property. It is also force used directly to preclude or impede the mission and/or duties of U.S. forces, including the recovery of U.S. personnel and U.S. government property.

Hostile intent is defined as “the threat of imminent use of force by a foreign force or terrorist unit (organization or individual) against the United States, U.S. forces, and in certain circumstances, U.S. citizens, their property, U.S. commercial assets, or other designated non-U.S. forces, foreign nationals and their property.”

Long story short, if someone is attacking or threatening to attack you or your unit you have the right to use armed force to deter, neutralize, or destroy the source of the attack or threat.

Unlike hostile act (everyone can tell when they are being attacked), hostile intent is a broad concept can be hard to describe with specificity. What constitutes a threat can change from situation to situation. What is or isn’t a threat will depend on enemy techniques, tactics, and procedures in an often fluid environment. Consequently, I can’t provide a bright line rule that will clearly define hostile intent in every situation. However, the individual grunt does not want that. The concept of hostile intent needs to be broad in order to allow the individual soldier, sailor, or Marine to exercise personal judgment based on his knowledge of the situation and the enemy. For that very reason I would tell my Marines that if they could explain in basic commonsense terms why they thought someone was a threat then they had nothing to worry about.

Now back to the scenario presented by LT G. In the above situation two individuals low crawling toward a road at midnight pushing an object that could be an IED are, at the very least, demonstrating hostile intent. I would argue that IED emplacement, in and of itself, is a hostile act. Consequently, the individuals could be engaged with deadly force for the actions described. However, LT G wanted to flash a light at these individuals to see if they fled and use their flight as the reason to engage with deadly force. This is precisely the wrong criteria to use. Running away from coalition forces is not, in and of itself, a demonstration of hostile intent. At any rate, you don’t have to wait. As stated above, the individuals could be engaged as soon as they are observed low crawling towards the road with the box. Furthermore, there are any number of additional variables that might indicate hostile intent long before flight becomes an issue.

I used to use a much less clear scenario than that described above to instruct the Marines of my battalion that if they caught insurgents emplacing an IED that they could kill them if they believed that was what the situation required. I did this because I wanted my Marines, both officer and enlisted, to clearly understand that they could use deadly force to defend themselves and their fellow Marines. There may be any number of reasons why they may not want to shoot the insurgents, i.e. intelligence gathering, etc. Nevertheless these are tactical decisions that are separate from what is permitted under the ROE.

One of my greatest concerns is that individual soldiers, sailors, and Marine will be confused about the ROE and that this confusion will cause them unnecessary hesitation in life or death situations. It does not have to be this way.