olddude if you did not see any weapons. If you did not see any armed men then you want your eyes tested - basically if you cannot see them you are blind. The weapons were seen (I picked out four people carrying) and those weapons were found at the scene. Now please tell me. Do you believe that they were not present or that they did not exist? (Remembering of course that they were found, they were photographed and eye-witnesses verified that they were there)

Now not knowing what planet you live on, if you have two patrols in the area and at least one of them has come under fire, and you are one of a crew of an Apache Attack helicopter tasked with providing cover for your troops on the ground are you actually telling me that your Rules of Engagement tell you that you cannot fire on the enemy until they have attacked your troops on the ground - If you try to tell me that you are fuckin' dreaming pal - You kill them before they kill or inflict damage on your own troops otherwise you should not be there, that is precisely what being in a support function is all about - simple as that, and that is exactly what these guys did.

Oh Lox:

"On contact no-one is permitted to remove anything or anybody from the scene of that incident, it was the task of those Helo crews to ensure that nothing was removed until such time as US ground forces and the Iraqi Police arrived on the scene."

1. Who's "rules"?

The elected Government of Iraq's Rules, how does that sit with you? That information - Displayed on Bill Boards, Displayed in Newspapers; Broadcast on radio and on television, good enough for you??

After the above the rest of your post was meaningless emotive inaccurate crap.

Do you think that these things would have featured in their list of priorities?

What about food, money, work, water, and if possible education and some kind of normality for their kids?

Come on Lox 'fess up you are not a parent are you? You have no children? How can I tell that? Where in your list of priorites does the basic safety and well being of your children feature?? IT DOESN'T DOES IT?

Your priorities are those of someone who has no children

FOOD is your Number 1 priority??
MONEY is your second?? By the way why do expect money to come before work I take it that you are a socialist - The state must support you - right??
WORK is your third priority!! Very pleased to hear that you think that you must actually do something to support yourself.
WATER as a fourth priority, fuckin ' marvellous, you Lox are an absolute bloody star because you then follow this fourth priority up with:

and if possible education and some kind of normality for their kids?

WOW, fuckin' WOW!!! As a parent you put four things ahead of the safety and well being of your children and when you finally get round to thinking about them, your children that is, when the reponsibility of looking after them finally crosses your mind - You voice that by being concerned about their bloody education - You are bloody unbelievable - Priority NUMBER ONE you MORON you make sure they survive, you do not deliberately and voluntarily put them in harms way, as their clown of a father did on the 12th of July 2007, that is of course assuming that he was indeed their father.