Army screw up or unfortunate incident?

So while operating in the Lake Thar Thar region, we are often left in the dark as to what the Army is doing just to our north. You would think that with technology and organization improvements of a modern era a quick phone call or comprehensive intel collaboration were easy. Well, it is. The problem is the individuals in the middle responsible for making it happen. They are often not quite competent enough to multi-task like that. Hey its a combat zone, some people have a lot on their plate. One particular night our company is manning the highway checkpoint and we get a call not to travel north of a certain grid line. A few hours later a rainstorm of fire descends from the sky in the distance. A few helicopters and gunships are in action! The next morning our company is called in to assist in setting up a security perimeter for the Army at the location of the previous nights' assault. The scene we enter is the demise of 34 Iraqis: 19 Adult Men (all quoted by official sources as either Al Qaeda operatives, insurgents, or both), 9 Women, and 6 Children (cited by news sources as 15 Civilians). Of course the Adult Male survivors were 'suspected insurgents'. How fortunate that they were able to kill all the ACTUAL insurgents and leave just the SUSPECTED ones living! I guess the Army Helo's have less discrimination when it comes to civilians.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101200590_pf.html

What am I saying here? Well, I am saying the Army is sloppy. Also, when were they going to tell us they had been tracking a known Al Qaeda cell for weeks just miles away from us? Thanks for the heads up. It turns out the story was they had tracked a small group of Al Qaeda planners from another meeting location to this house. When the Army came upon the house they received gun fire from multiple persons in the house. The Army cordoned off the area, returned fire, and called in the Helos for superior firepower. While there was plenty of spent casings in the house, it hardly seemed enough for an air strike. Perhaps they could have used their armored vehicles to create a siege line from a safe distance and let the bad guys run out of gas. Then perhaps they would have had 19 captured insurgents with all the intel they inevitably died with. I am no war planner, and certainly this incident is not the result of failings at higher levels (Generals, President, etc.), but I think sometimes the Army is dumb, and sometimes there are incompetent officers out there doing a bad job. Luckily, the great majority of men are doing an outstanding job. It is too bad seemingly innocent women and children (innocent by virtue of their sex/age) had to die, but the insurgent men made that decision. They fired upon coalition forces with lethal force as if to use the women and children as a screen or shield to hide behind. Certainly they were bad guys. Most farmers and ranchers in this area do not and are not allowed to stockpile Russian made military grade automatic weapons with enough ammunition to cause the Army to call in an air strike.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/12/america/iraq.php
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=9349
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?ex=1349928000&en=d2a1b1380409154e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/1012/breaking1.html?via=rel
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/13/MNUNSPBFC.DTL