Bidimnah, Iraq ? The two bloodied, wincing Iraqi soldiers – bandages wrapped around their legs – hobbled onto the waiting ambulance, wounded during a house-to-house search near this farming town.

The culprit was a common one: Not insurgents, but gunfire from fellow soldiers. U.S. trainers who mentor Iraqi troops say a lack of gun safety, or what they call “muzzle discipline,” has led to many injuries and deaths across the country.

And while the Americans say it is slowly getting better, it remains a major problem for a U.S. military trying to train more than 200,000 Iraqis to defeat the insurgency.

“When we first got here, it was a little scary,” said Army Capt. Steven Fischer, a trainer from Washington, Pa. “We have to correct it. It’s something that’s got to be better.”

In the Bidimnah case in late January, insurgents first fired on Iraqi and U.S. troops patrolling the rural area about 50 miles west of Baghdad. That prompted more than a minute of wild, continuous gunfire from the Iraqi troops. The two Iraqi soldiers were wounded while the militants escaped unharmed.

Other examples are rife and often startling:

¢ In December in the town of Adhaim north of Baghdad, an Iraqi soldier stepped out of a vehicle with his safety lever turned off and accidentally shot himself point-blank in the chest. Minutes later, as a U.S. helicopter carried the dying man away, an Associated Press reporter saw a frustrated American soldier storm up and lecture another Iraqi soldier, who also did not have his safety on.

¢ During a large-scale operation last summer in Baghdad, an antsy Iraqi soldier took aim at what he thought was an insurgent, prompting several other Iraqi soldiers to drill hundreds of rounds into an empty home. No one was injured.

Iraq had a million-man army under Saddam Hussein, but soldiers who served in the old army said they were given only a few bullets a year – apparently a way to prevent coups. That practice left Iraqi troops untrained in the most basic of soldiering skills.

Iraq now has tens of thousands of rookie soldiers who only recently learned how to use a weapon. And misfires have led to dozens of military deaths.

The problem is hardly unique to Iraq: armies across Africa and the Third World are notorious for their lack of safety procedures. But the problem is particularly acute in Iraq, where thousands with automatic weapons are on alert for insurgents.

Roadside bomb blasts that target Iraqi patrols are often followed by aimless gunfire from the Iraqis, usually useless since most attackers hide before they detonate bombs. And Iraqi soldiers sometimes clear traffic from roads by firing into the air.

Cultural issues also exacerbate the problem. Many Iraqi soldiers swagger with their guns and neglect to use safety levers as a sign of manliness.

In comparison, U.S. soldiers pride themselves on gun discipline, stressing the preservation of ammunition until a target is identified. U.S. misfires can lead to demotions or serious reprimands.