By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.
Washington File staff writer

U.S. Central Command officials believe "it's entirely possible that" an Iraqi surface-to-air missile fired wildly without being guided by radar may be responsible for the deaths of 14 civilians in the northern Baghdad Shaab marketplace, says Army Brigadier General Vincent Brooks.

At a CENTCOM briefing March 27, Brooks said coalition forces used precision-guided weapons to target nine Iraqi surface-to-surface missiles and launchers in Baghdad at approximately 11 a.m. local time March 26 (0800 GMT, 3 a.m. EST).

"The missiles and launchers were placed within a civilian residential area," a CENTCOM statement said. "Most of the missiles were positioned less than 300 feet from homes."

Brooks said that while CENTCOM officials are fully investigating the incident to determine whose missiles might have caused the fatalities, it may not be fully known "until we're in Baghdad ourselves, which we will be. The best that we can do at this point is account for everything we did, and we have accounted for our weapon systems that we fired on that [day]; they hit their target, we're certain of that."

Air Force investigators examine what missions were flown, what weapon systems specifically were used in a period of time when it might have contributed to an incident, and examine flight paths and angles of attack, Brooks said during the daily CENTCOM briefing from the command's forward headquarters at Camp As Sayliyah near Doha, Qatar.

"It reinforces first that we have no intention of harming civilians unnecessarily or destroying infrastructure and buildings that we don't intend to attack," Brooks said. "What I know further about this particular one is that we did have an air mission that attacked some targets, not in that area but in a different area, and during that period of time, they encountered surface-to-air missile fire."

Brooks said at the outset of his regular briefing to the media that the Iraqis have been seen firing uncontrolled surface-to-air missiles. "What I mean by that is, normally they are controlled by radar, but there's a hazard to turning on a radar against one of our aircraft, a very certain hazard, and so the firing crews have decided not to turn on the radar, and fire the missiles ballistically," he said.

Brooks also said the Iraqis have been using very old stocks of surface-to-air missiles.

"Those stocks are not reliable, and missiles are going up and coming down," he said. "So, we think it's entirely possible that this may have been, in fact, an Iraqi missile that either went up and came down, or given the behaviors of the regime lately, it may have been a deliberate attack inside of town."