Reprimand in ‘friendly fire’ case

NEW ORLEANS – A U.S. fighter pilot who mistakenly bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002, killing four, was found guilty Tuesday of dereliction of duty and was reprimanded and docked a month’s pay, or nearly $5,700.

Maj. Harry Schmidt, 38, “acted shamefully” during the episode, “exhibiting arrogance and a lack of flight discipline,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson wrote in the reprimand.

Schmidt, a former instructor at the Navy’s “Top Gun” fighter pilot school, had blamed the bombing on the “fog of war,” saying he mistook the Canadians’ gunfire for an attack by Taliban forces. He said his superiors never told him that the Canadians would be conducting live-fire exercises near Kandahar airport that night.

He was originally charged with manslaughter and aggravated assault, but the charges were reduced last year to dereliction of duty.

Carlson said Schmidt had become impatient waiting for permission from air controllers to attack what he believed was Taliban artillery. He was warned to “make sure it’s not friendlies” before firing.

The reprimand said Schmidt should have taken evasive action rather than attack and accused him of lying about his motivation for the bombing, using “the inherent right of self-defense as an excuse to wage your own war.”

Charles Gittins, Schmidt’s civilian lawyer, said he is considering an appeal and repeated his claim that Schmidt was made a scapegoat for his commanders’ poor planning. He said the reprimand amounted to an unfair conviction for murder.

“If what Gen. Carlson claimed were true — that Harry used self defense as a pretext and recklessly released ordnance without legal justification — that constitutes unpremeditated murder,” Gittins said in a prepared statement.