Official: U.S. Errors Led To Afghan Deaths

Military Did Not Follow Rules For Aerial Bombings, Causing Civilian Deaths, Source Says

(AP)  The U.S. military's failure to follow tightened rules for aerial strikes likely caused civilian deaths in a May 4 American bombing in western Afghanistan, a defense official said Wednesday.

The finding comes from an internal review of the incident, said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on grounds of anonymity because the investigation is not complete.

"Errors were made" in the early May attack, the official acknowledged, discussing an incident that has strained relations between Washington and Kabul and caused resentment among the Afghan people.

American military commanders on a number of occasions have rewritten rules on U.S. bombing missions in an effort to avoid civilian casualties, most recently late last year. The official said these more restrictive rules were not followed in some of the air strikes May 4 in Afghanistan's western Farah province.

The report, which must still be circulated and briefed to other officials before it's final, was the most straightforward acknowledgment yet by the United States that mistakes were made in the strike. The story was first reported by The New York Times.

One example cited by the investigators, the official said, involved a U.S. warplane that got permission to launch an attack against a suspected Taliban site and proceeded toward carrying it out. For some reason, the plane circled back and didn't reconfirm the target before dropping the bomb. The official said that left the possibility that civilians had entered the area or that the Taliban had left.

President Hamid Karzai has urged more caution on the part of the allied forces, and he discussed the situation on a recent visit to Washington. Afghans say 140 civilians died, while American commanders say video evidence recorded by fighter jets and the account of the ground commander suggest no more than 30 civilians were killed, as well as 60-65 Taliban.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said a team that it sent to the area saw "dozens of bodies in each of the two locations," including women and children.

Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has been chosen by the administration to replace Gen. David McKiernan as commander in Afghanistan, on Tuesday emphasized the importance of avoiding Afghan civilian casualties during his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee.

"This is a struggle for the support of the Afghan people. Our willingness to operate in ways that minimize casualties or damage - even when doing so makes our task more difficult - is essential to our credibility," McChrystal said. "I cannot overstate my commitment to the importance of this concept."

The general said he intends to review U.S. and allied operating procedures with an eye to minimizing civilian deaths. He also said that if he could obtain more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, it would sharpen the precision of allied attacks, thereby avoiding unwanted casualties.

"I believe the perception caused by civilian casualties is one of the most dangerous things we face in Afghanistan, particularly with the Afghan people," he said. "We've got to recognize that that is a way to lose their faith and lose their support, and that would be strategically decisive against us."

Protecting the local population is a key tenet in counterinsurgency campaigns to "win hearts and minds" away from insurgents and for the nation's elected government. Karzai has repeatedly warned that civilian deaths are causing Afghans to side with the Taliban. The Obama administration is pouring more troops into the country to battle the raging insurgency.

According to the U.S. military, the battle in Farah province began a day after Taliban fighters entered the two villages, demanded money from civilians and killed three former government employees. An Afghan force rushed in, only to be ambushed by as many as 300 insurgents.

The provincial governor asked for U.S. military help, and American ground troops joined the battle, the U.S. says.

Before the battle was over, troops called in F-18 fighter jet airstrikes as well as help from a B-1 bomber, coordinating with the ground commander to strike a half dozen targets including buildings and a tree grove insurgents were firing from or massing in, the U.S. has said.

Officials have insisted they go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties on the ground.

Maj. Gen. William Rew, the Air Force's director of operational planning, policy and strategy, said during a February meeting with reporters that "thousands" of attacks have been called off at the last minute when live video feeds from unmanned aerial vehicles showed civilians in the area of a planned strike.

[sean58z]

Kabul should design strategies and tactics for this war. Incompetence is based on ignorance. NATO lacks knowledge of Afghanistan.

[sean58z]

NATO imprecisely uses explosives on likely Criminal targets. Civilians are inadvertently killed. Why allow a foreign army conduct this war. Strategies should be designed and implement

[Dgunner]

Alpha iooo, the attack choppers in vietnam would not have had to destroy so much , so many and so fast if the little SOBS would lie to us one day then move ordinance the next. After numerous warnings to halt this action . They would claim it was under duress from the VC. After offering counter measures and trade items fro information as to the trail networks and then turning on us . Yes We struck them> I was on the door and when we canme in they KNEW why we were there and that thier day and life as they knew was about to change or end. Riding the proverbial fence got your a-s$ and your family killed. This was still going on after we left. Iam just saddened by the fact that I couldn't get all the two faced treasonous POs. The Old .50 cals would get hot even the watercooled BARS could not take the strain..

[nofoolling]

You are always shooting off you mouth about greed and contractors getting rich. Why don't you prove this with backup proof or just shut the he11 up.
Posted by d7767w

All you got to do is look up the profits for Haliburton, KBR, The Carlyle Group, The Bin Laden Group and others closely associated with Bush and Cheney as business partners, to understand something's really rotten with the whole ficticiously nonsensical fabrication of 911 and 2 senseless wars.

Or maybe you've found the entire 757 that supposedly hit the pentagon, and then presto, mysteriously vaporized? The airplane vaporized but the FBI still found the paper passports of the bad guys in the wreckage? The funniest part is when they pulled a nearly pristine engine part out of the rubble to show off to the public, right up until Pratt and Whitney said it didn't come from a 757! Hardy har har har.

[texasbeta]

When you protect the murderer of 3,000 Americans, and then hide among your citizens like coward dogs and pretend naivete....I'm sorry the real world just doesn't operate on your fantasy level....
Posted by IThoughtItWasFunny at 12:33 PM : Jun 3, 2009

AMEN, well put these so called civilians know exactly where OBL is and where the Taliban are hiding if they want to cover for them so be it, suffer the consequences.
Posted by d7767w

You act like he is up the road, and they are hiding him. This is disgusting...the lack of forethought in this chain of posts is repulsive. You are justifying the killijg of innocent people, because you don't like them...because you don't have the sack to get up off the couch and look at a map to see the size of this region, and the terrain. You know...we were attacked by bin Laden, and told we were all kinds of things as their justification. We blew off what they claimed as ridiculous...but the thing is...we became exactly what they claimed we were. Over the last 8 years our administation has followed the path directly...invading people who were not involved, not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shia and not caring about anything in regards to the region's history and current problems, torturing, hiding it, irgnoring the Constitution, spying on our own citizens while disregarding the Constitution....and now fully allowing our anger to push us to justify killing virtually anyone and for any reason. We have become exactly what they claimed we were. Thanks to Bush and people like you...Osama bin Laden won. That sucks...but let that sink in. He is still out there...we have sunk to acting like angry little kids, and again...we lost. No matter how many caves we blew up...we devolved into just blaming all Muslims, completely destabalized an already unstable region...ignoring our own freedoms, lying to start a fake war where only a few tied in companies got anything out of, all of it...what a sham. This jerk beat us and we let him.

[texasbeta]

Oh, and war is hell. We can learn from our mistakes, but the bottom line is that this is war, and people die.
Posted by gravyboat3000

That doesn't mean you just go walking around and killing anything that moves. Doesn't this country and its principles mean absolutely anything to you psychos?

[texasbeta]

Bin Ladin accepted "collateral damage" when he had the trade center destroyed....no?
Posted by babooph

Are you 10 years old or what? WE are a country! WE are the US. WE are not a little **** ass terrorist organization. I am SICK AND TIRED of you people thinking with the childlike mindeset of : well, they do it, so we can do it too. What a bunch of grown morons with children's brains. Actually, children even understand this....you are pathetic.

[gravyboat3000]

Bin Ladin accepted "collateral damage" when he had the trade center destroyed....no?
Posted by babooph

No, Bin Ladin wanted to kill as many people as possible, there was no,"collateral damage".

Oh, and war is hell. We can learn from our mistakes, but the bottom line is that this is war, and people die.

[babooph]

Bin Ladin accepted "collateral damage" when he had the trade center destroyed....no?

[nofoolling]

"The American government is the world's largest terrorist group in existence. The two lie wars we are in serve no purpose other than for defense contractors to siphon billions of taxpayer dollars,,,,,,they are not about the security of this country as they would have you to believe, it is all for the sake of greed.

Posted by tincup356

Bravo, you are so right.

How many of the folks that "made mistakes" that have caused the needless deaths of thousands of innocent men, women, and children will now face charges like the average American would if he caused the senseless deaths of others?

[mywordtoo]

Bad Americans, bad, bad, bad. Now Obama will need to make a pit stop and apologize for the evil Americans.

[mecury69]

"It's every American who thinks (or at least is willing to tolerate without protest) that an American life is worth more than an Afghani one."

You are correct. American troops call in air strikes to reduce friendly casualties. And by this report there were none. It's understandable and would probably do the same thing myself (unless trained otherwise). The troops have to get dirty and go in when the Taliban use civilians as shields. It sucks, but that is the reality. War is hell.

But you loose the support of the local population and build up the ranks of the Taliban when so many civilians are killed and no Americans

Remember Vietnam???

[mecury69]

"Check your hsitory books. Nagasaki didn't win too many hearts and minds and it brought about a white flag pretty quickly. Your problem is you think is terms of ground troops.
Posted by rsoxfan1123 at 1:29 PM : Jun 3, 2009"

I'm quite fluent in history, actually.

And your position is we should nuke them?

I'll just rest my case.

[mecury69]

"Had we tried to "liberate" WWII Germany and"win the hearts and minds" of the German people we would've lost that one also. War is war and you need to defeat a country with everything you have or stay out of it.
Posted by rsoxfan1123 at 1:31 PM : Jun 3, 2009"

It's irrational to correlate the threat of WWII Germany to Afghanistan.

[rsoxfan1123]

Had we tried to "liberate" WWII Germany and"win the hearts and minds" of the German people we would've lost that one also. War is war and you need to defeat a country with everything you have or stay out of it.

[rsoxfan1123]

Winning the hearts and minds is the only way to win.
Posted by mecury69 at 1:03 PM : Jun 3, 2009

Check your hsitory books. Nagasaki didn't win too many hearts and minds and it brought about a white flag pretty quickly. Your problem is you think is terms of ground troops.

[mysteriousjz]

That's why we can't win in Afghanistan.

Even if we were to change tactics today, so much resentment has been built up in the populace there from years of these tactics that ours is a lost cause. That's not defeatism, just an honest assessment of the situation. Want to know who is to blame for our "defeat"? It's every American who believes the military-industrial complex's claim that war can be made relatively painless --- at least for us. It's every American who believes that it's OK to reduce our casualties by choice of tactics even when those tactics increase civilian deaths. It's every American who thinks (or at least is willing to tolerate without protest) that an American life is worth more than an Afghani one. And last but not least, it's every American who is painting a console picture "it is their fault-they deserve it."

War isn't a video game for those on the receiving end. Until Americans understand that, we will not only lose in Afghanistan, but also in many other places.

[mecury69]

"when are we going to learn. you have to declare a war against a country and then defeat it- this "liberating" and "winning hearts and minds" won't work until after they wave the white flag.
Posted by rsoxfan1123 at 12:52 PM : Jun 3, 2009"

Sounds good except it would take hundreds of thousands of troops to completely control a country. That means thousands of casualties. In case you were not aware, Russia tried to control Afghanistan for over 10 years with massive troop levels and LOST.

You will not see a white flag anywhere unless there is complete and utter domination and that is not possible in Afghanistan (history shows every single foreign country that has tried has failed).

Winning the hearts and minds is the only way to win.

[mecury69]

"The American government is the world's largest terrorist group in existence. The two lie wars we are in serve no purpose other than for defense contractors to siphon billions of taxpayer dollars,,,,,,they are not about the security of this country as they would have you to believe, it is all for the sake of greed.
Posted by tincup356 at 12:08 PM : Jun 3, 2009"

Yikes, you really need to take off the single minded blinders you have on.

One war is just (Afghan) and one is not (Iraq).

The Tailban (controlling Afghanistan at the time of 9-11) sided with Bin Laden and had the option to turn him over and elected not. There was no other choice than for the American government to protect itself from further attacks.

You really need to stay off the wacky websites with conspiracy fanatics.

[rsoxfan1123]

when are we going to learn. you have to declare a war against a country and then defeat it- this "liberating" and "winning hearts and minds" won't work until after they wave the white flag.