But that human error, he said, was “compounded by systems and procedural failures”.
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The US commander in Afghanistan says some of those most closely involved in the mistaken air attack on a hospital in Kunduz have been suspended from their duties.
The accidental bombing killed over 30 people in the charity-run hospital in the city of Kunduz, Northern Afghanistan as the U.S. Air Force mistook the hospital for a Taliban post located a few hundred meter away. However, the gunship took off 69 minutes early, before its crew was fully briefed on what targets were off-limits, including the hospital, Campbell said. And other questions remain. He gave his condolences and said the USA military would offer to help rebuild the hospital.
“We will also take administrative and disciplinary action”, he said, adding that those involved would face “standard military justice”.
“We reiterate our (request) that the USA government consent to an independent investigation led by the global Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened”, Liu added.
“The frightening catalogue of errors outlined today illustrates gross negligence on the part of US forces and violations of the rules of war”.
Addressing journalists in Washington on Wednesday, the senior US General John Campbell reiterated the “US forces would never intentionally (strike) a hospital”.
The aid group has called for an independent worldwide inquiry into the airstrike, by a body set up under the Geneva Conventions, but US and Afghan officials have refused to allow that to proceed.
On October 3, USA forces carried out an airstrike that hit the hospital. From this point on, errors occurred, Campbell said. The information came from boots on the ground, intelligence from both Afghan and American soldiers, who described the building to the American AC-130 gunship, which conducted the strikes.
Now further away from its target, the planes systems became less acute.
In a communique released to the media, the organization’s general director, Christopher Stokes, commented after learning the results of the USA investigation, which attributed the incident to human error in identifying the target of the military operation.
The crew saw the closest, largest building near the field- the MSF hospital.
The investigation claimed that the warplane that attacked the hospital was given the coordinates of a site suspected of being a “Taliban base”, but that it turned out to be an empty field. The report found that the commander of the Special Operations forces lacked the authority to direct the aircrew to attack the hospital, Campbell said.
Campbell was ultimately in charge during the attack on the hospital, but a military official in Kabul said he was in an aircraft at the time, on his way to testify before Congress on Afghanistan. When the targeting system later found the right building, the crew ignored it. And when they sent coordinates to headquarters, nobody there matched it up with their no-strike list. “We made a awful mistake that contributed to unnecessary deaths”.
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Despite the “fatal error”, no nation does more to prevent civilian casualties in military operations than the United States, Campbell asserted.
