The US air strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital that killed at least 30 people last month happened as a “direct result of avoidable human error”, the Pentagon said Wednesday. “I can tell you that those individuals most closely associated with the incident have been suspended from their duties, pending consideration and disposition of administrative and disciplinary matters”. “They executed from air and did not take appropriate measures to verify the facility was a military target”, he said, adding that “fatigue” and “high operational tempo contributed to this tragedy”.
Advertisement
Even when these were corrected, the crew remained “fixated” on the physical description of their original target, Campbell admitted, even though there were some “contradictory indicators”.
The hospital had been targeted based on a visual description given by Afghan forces.
MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, has demanded an global humanitarian commission to investigate the attack.
How USA personnel could have confused its location only a few hours later is not clear, nor is it clear why the gunship repeatedly bombed the hospital when there was no retrun fire.
According to the investigation, USA forces had meant to target a different building in the city and were led off-track by a technical error in their aircraft’s mapping system that initially directed them to an empty field. But a senior us military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that among those punished was the Army Special Forces commander on the ground in Kunduz during the fighting.
Once bombing began several frantic calls were made to the US government to cease the strikes, but by the time word reached the gunship, it was too late, the strike was over and 30 people had been killed with another 37 wounded.
They did not address claims by Afghan officials that the hospital had been overrun by the Taliban, but a summary of one of the investigations said there is no evidence to support that.
“General Campbell has already directed a thorough review of the process”, he said.
The United States military offered several conflicting explanations for the deadly attack, at first saying there had been a strike “in the vicinity” of the hospital that might have “resulted in collateral damage”.
Later General Campbell suggested that Afghan forces had called in the strike, before offering a fourth account in four days admitting USA special forces had been in touch with the aircraft.
Advertisement
Campbell did not take questions, handing over to Brigadier General Wilson Shoffner, who refused to comment on whether Campbell would consider his position or whether an independent global investigation should be conducted. An investigation by the US military has found that the gunship launched without being briefed on “crucial mission materials, including no-strike info that would have determined the coordinates of the hospital”, Campbell said.
