Et Tu, Tall Afar?
Jul 31, 2020138.2K Shares2.3M Views
Scott Ewing is an Army scout who served with the 3rd Amored Cavalry Regiment in 2005 in the city of Tall Afar. To counterinsurgency advocates, 3rd ACR and Tall Afar are legends — the brigade, commanded by H.R. McMaster and his executive officer Paul Yingling, that provided a template for Gen. Petraeus’ population-protection strategy.
Before Congress, Ewing provided a dark counternarrative to 3rd ACR. During a two-house search, Ewing remembered, he entered a house to find soldiers from a mortar platoon holding six Iraqi men against a wall. Out in the driveway, “several middle-aged women” lay on the concrete “covered in blood.” An Apache helicopter “had fired several high-explosive rounds into the front yard.”
Ewing’s comrades provided what medical care to the wounded they could. But, growing emotional, he recalled that some of the women were beyond treatment. “A little boy, about nine, a nine-year old boy,” he said, “came up to me and pointed to his chest and there was a blood spot on it.” He got the boy and some of the women to an aid station.
“This incident,” he said, “illustrates the first serious difference between what I saw in Iraq and what is seen back home. There has been almost no explicit reporting by the mainstream media of civilian casualties caused by U.S. troops in Iraq. Anytime a suicide bomber kills civilians it is highly publicized. But from my personal experience in Tall Afar, the number of Iraqis killed or injured by our forces far outnumbered those killed by insurgents or suicide bombers.”
Update: The Washington Post reportstoday that McMaster will finally receive his long-delayed/awaited promotion to brigadier general.
Rhyley Carney
Reviewer
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