Army investigators recommended no charges in friendly fire deaths

MONTPELIER, Vt. --An Army investigator recommended that no charges be filed against the U.S. Special Forces machine gunner who killed two allied soldiers during a heated nighttime battle last year in Afghanistan.

The recommendation is in documents released by the Army on Tuesday about the friendly fire deaths of Vermont National Guard 1st Sgt. John Thomas Stone and Canadian Pvt. Robert Costall. Their deaths, "while regrettable, are understandable in the context of this firefight," said one document, a report written by an American Army officer whose name was blacked out.

The officer said Costall and 37 other Canadian soldiers were sent to reinforce Forward Operating Base Robinson for an expected attack on March 28, 2006. They were moved into the field of fire of the machine gunner, who was at a Special Forces compound inside the base, the report said.

It said an "inaccurate target identification" that night by the gunner, who was not identified in the report, caused him to fire at the rooftop position where Stone and other soldiers were crouched behind a wall fighting off an attack by Taliban forces.

In the report and a second one released Tuesday, the Army said an inadequate base defense plan and fatigue contributed to the tragedy, as did a lack of communication from headquarters and significant supply problems at the base in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

Both reports are executive summaries of investigations into the tragedy. One was done for the Department of Defense command in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The second was prepared for the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Both were inadvertently excluded from a compact disk delivered to The Associated Press on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents released Monday marked the first official confirmation that friendly fire caused the deaths.

Stone, 52, of Tunbridge, joined the military after high school, but was in an out of the service several times over the course of 35 years. He was on his third tour in Afghanistan.

The friendly fire investigation began the day after he and Costall were killed.

In the new reports, one investigator said he spoke with the two Special Forces soldiers manning two machine guns in the area where the fatal shots were fired. Neither acknowledged firing the fatal shots, but their statements "lack credibility," the investigator said.

The Special Forces report said the small base, established about a month earlier, had been under near daily attack. It had acute supply problems and its soldiers were exhausted, the report said.

At one point in February, soon after the base was established, the Americans had to use their own money to buy food for the Afghan soldiers with them, the report said.

The Canadian reinforcements arrived by helicopter after dark at the same time an 80-vehicle supply convoy arrived, creating confusion about where the vehicles and soldiers should be placed, the reports said. The attack began about 1:45 a.m. March 29 with mortars followed by rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire.

Stone went to the roof of the building where he was staying and was hit in the back by a machine gun bullet that traveled through his body and into his head, according to the reports. He was not wearing body armor.

Costall and the Canadian soldiers were on a berm outside the gate. Costall was hit by two shots, either of which would have been fatal, the report said.

The battle effectively ended when coalition forces called in an airstrike, the reports said.