Troops say failure to learn lessons led to soldier kidnappings David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Friday May 25, 2007 Print This Email This CNN reported on Friday that the recent kidnapping of American soldiers in the so-called "Triangle of Death" in Iraq might have been avoided if the military had learned the lessons of a very similar incident in the same area a year ago, when a post was attacked and soldiers kidnapped and later killed. According to taped depositions taken by lawyers, the soldiers in that area are "constantly" complaining there are too few troops on the ground and asking for a larger force. "If I was an an insurgent, I would attack," says one soldier. "These jackasses, they did it again...they didn't learn," says another. After the earlier incident, a platoon leader and a commander were disciplined, but ironically they were the same men who had been begging for more troops. CNN asked a retired general to comment on the incident. He said that lessons can easily be forgotten as troops rotate in and out of a combat area, but also agreed that under current circumstances 170,000 troops in Iraq are not enough. The following video is from CNN's American Morning.





