In what sounds like a sick premise for a hidden camera show, the Pentagon has encouraged US military snipers in Iraq to scatter pieces of “bait” and kill passersby unlucky enough to pick them up. This bait can be detonation cords, plastic explosives, or ammunition, and those who pick it up are automatically regarded as insurgents intent on using the equipment against Americans. Other intentions for picking up the bait, such as wanting to remove hazardous material from their neighborhood, seizing the opportunity to turn a buck off the unguarded merchandise, or plain curiosity, are not even considered.

The classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.

“Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,” Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. “Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. forces.”…

…It is unclear whether the program reached elsewhere in Iraq and how many people were killed through the baiting.

Members of the sniper platoon have said they felt pressure from commanders to kill more insurgents, because U.S. units in the area had taken heavy losses. The sniper unit often went on missions into hostile areas to intercept insurgents going to and from hidden weapons caches.

Within months of the program’s introduction, three snipers in Didier’s platoon were charged with murder for allegedly using those items and others to make shootings seem legitimate. Though it does not appear that the three alleged shootings were specifically part of the classified program, defense attorneys argue that the program may have opened the door to the soldiers’ actions because it blurred the legal lines of killing in a complex war zone.

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As horrible as this is, it should be noted that Blackwater also has snipers in Iraq who follow even looser guidelines without the fear of ever being tried for any crime.