Mahmudiyah Killing

While the responsibility for the Mahmudiyah killings falls squarely on the soldiers that committed the atrocity, the development of the climate that allowed the killings to happen is a result of multiple failures of command, leadership and the selective following of standards. While I am loath to suggest that I can offer anything more than an amateur and outsider's analysis of what happened in and leading up to the horrors of the spring of 2006, it is the duty of every leader to attempt to explain and learn from the mistakes of others.

The concept of "standards", are really just a specifically determined, minimum level of acceptable performance in any field, from an individual soldier's physical ability, to the storage of ammunition to prevent corrosion. "Regulations" exist to ensure that those minimum standards are met, and thousands of these regulations are created to act as guidelines and instructions for basic military operations. The regulation that demands that the safety on our rifles be selected at all times unless engaging a target, ensures that minimum standards of safety are met in order to prevent negligent discharges. All regulations exist for a very definite, even if not immediately evident, purpose and as more and more regulations begin to be ignored, those standards rapidly begin to fall below the minimum levels of acceptability.

As the solders from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, operated in the area south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death, they began to face a series of serious problems and failures of leadership, which lead to the selective following of regulations and standards that allowed the murders to occur. Overwhelmingly, the largest failure of 1st Platoon and by extension, Bravo Company, was their failure to adequately staff the TCPs they had been tasked with. Understandably, the extensive casualties suffered by 1st Platoon made it extremely difficult to ensure that soldiers were getting enough sleep and downtime while still manning the positions. This failure, above all else, directly lead to the killings. The only reason why Green, Barker, Cortez and Spielman were able to leave their post and commit the murders was because the TCP was staffed with only five soldiers. Had the TCP been staffed with a squad sized element or even just a senior NCO, the killings wouldn't have even been a possibility. This failure to follow manpower directives lead to the deaths of several soldiers at other defensive points, and greatly increased the soldiers stress levels due to the simple fact that they knew that they didn't have enough men to fight off an attack and survive.

The fact is, there is nothing Bravo Company could do to prevent neither the majority of the casualties they experienced, nor the rapid and stunning loss of their key leaders at devastating times. However, the company's selective noncompliance