War
Crimes
An internal
Defense Department investigation into one of the most notorious night
raids conducted by special operations forces in Afghanistan — in
which seven civilians were killed, including two pregnant women —
determined that all the U.S. soldiers involved had followed the rules
of engagement. As a result, the soldiers faced no disciplinary
measures, according to hundreds of pages of Defense Department
documents obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of
Information Act. In the aftermath of the raid, Adm. William McRaven,
at the time the commander of the elite Joint Special Operations
Command, took responsibility for the operation. The documents made no
unredacted mention of JSOC.
Although two
children were shot during the raid and multiple witnesses and Afghan
investigators alleged that U.S. soldiers dug bullets out of the body
of at least one of the dead pregnant women, Defense Department
investigators concluded that “the amount of force utilized was
necessary, proportional and applied at appropriate time.” The
investigation did acknowledge that “tactical mistakes” were made.
The Defense
Department’s conclusions bear a resemblance to U.S. Central
Command’s findings in the aftermath of the horrifying attack on a
Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last
October in which 42 patients and medical workers were killed in a
sustained barrage of strikes by an AC-130. The Pentagon has announced
that no criminal charges will be brought against any members of the
military for the Kunduz strike. CENTCOM’s Kunduz investigation
concluded that “the incident resulted from a combination of
unintentional human errors, process errors, and equipment failures.”
CENTCOM denied the attack constituted a war crime, a claim challenged
by international law experts and MSF.
Full
report:
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