Military leaders have maintained radio silence about five major gun battles involving Danish forces in Iraq. Five episodes classified by the military as 'serious incidents' have not been made public. The incidents were finally made public on Sunday by regional daily JydskeVestkysten, which had obtained military reports about the clashes through freedom of information requests.According to Major Kim GrÃŒnberger, press liaison for the Army Operational Command, the information had not been withheld as a way to hide what had happened. In four of the incidents, it could not be determined whether any Iraqis had been wounded in the exchanges. In the fifth, an incident from 2003 in which an unarmed black marketer was wounded when Danish forces shot after his car, GrÃŒnberger decided that because the Iraqi had only been lightly wounded, there was no cause to issue a press release informing of the incident.
GrÃŒnberger said that the he had also taken the soldiers' families into account when deciding not to publicise the incidents. 'Especially in the early stages of the conflict, we were very nervous about telling the public and families about fire fights, because it could have gotten them to react negatively,' said GrÃŒnberger. 'We definitely took that into consideration.'