Winter Soldier by Iraq Veterans Against the War, Aaron Glantz Page A

South because it rings with truth to people down there: If a foreign occupying force came here to the United States, whether they told us they were here to liberate us or to give us democracy, do you not think that every person that owns a shotgun would not come out of the hills and fight for their right to self-determination? Another time I was out on patrol in the Kindi Street area. I approached a man with my interpreter on the side of the road and said, “Look, are your lives better because we are here? Are you safer? Do you feel more secure? Do you feel like we are liberating you?” That man looked me straight in the eye and said, “Mister, we Iraqis know that you have good intentions here, but the fact is that before America invaded, we didn’t have to worry about car bombs in our neighborhoods. We didn’t have to worry about the safety of our own children before they walked to school, and we didn’t have to worry about U.S. soldiers shooting at us as we drive up and down our own streets.”
    Ladies and gentlemen, the suffering in Iraq is tearing that country apart. Ending that suffering begins with a complete and immediate withdrawal of all of our troops.

Adam Kokesh
Sergeant, United States Marine Corps Reserve, Civil Affairs
Deployment: February 18–September 14, 2004, Fallujah
Hometown: Claremont, California
Age at Winter Soldier: 26 years old
    I was against the war before the war. Even though I believed all of the lies that Colin Powell told at the UN, all the intelligence, all the spin. I didn’t think it was going to be worth it, but in 2004 I thought that we were cleaning up our mess and genuinely trying to do good by the Iraqi people. That was something I wanted to be a part of, and something that I enthusiastically risked my life for.
    This is the Rules of Engagement card that I was issued for our deployment to Iraq [Kokesh holds up his U.S. Marine Corps Rules of Engagement card, which is reproduced in the appendix of this volume.]
    This is held up as the gold standard of conduct in the occupation right now, and they couldn’t even cut it square. I’ll read a part of it. It says, “Nothing on this card prevents you from using deadly force to defend yourself. Enemy, military, and paramilitary forces may be attacked, subject to the following instructions: Positive identification is required prior to engagement. Positive identification is ‘reasonable certainty’”–that’s in quotes on the card—“that your target is a legitimate military target.” We were supposed to keep this in our breast pocket.
    In April of 2004, we got an order to pack for three days and have our vehicle and a convoy ready to go at midnight. We weren’t told where we were going. This was right after the four Blackwater security agents were killed and had their bodies burned and hung from the northern bridge over the Euphrates on the western side of Fallujah.
    During the siege of Fallujah, we changed Rules of Engagement more often than we changed our underwear. At first it was, “You follow the Rules of Engagement. You do what you’re supposed to do.” Then there were times when it was, “You can shoot any suspicious observer.” So someone with binoculars and a cell phone was fair game, and that opened things up to a lot of subjectivity.
    At one point we imposed a curfew on Fallujah, and then we were allowed to shoot anything after dark. Fortunately, I was never forced to make that decision, but there were a lot of marines who were forced to make that choice.
    In one incident, in the first couple of days we were there, there was a checkpoint shooting to the west of our perimeter. We were told a vehicle was approaching an impromptu vehicle checkpoint at a high rate of speed. That gave marines manning the checkpoint cause to be suspicious and they unloaded into that vehicle with a .50-caliber machine gun. The idea is that anybody coming at your position who doesn’t slow down to five miles an hour is an enemy