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Inquiry airstrikes { July 9 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41526-2002Jul8.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41526-2002Jul8.html
Inquiry Set In Afghans' Deaths in Airstrike
Pentagon Still Disputes Number Of Casualties
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 9, 2002; Page A17
The Pentagon announced plans yesterday to send an investigative team to Afghanistan within two days to begin a formal inquiry into the deaths of Afghan civilians in a U.S. airstrike last week.
The investigation board will be headed by a one-star Air Force general and include experts in air traffic control and AC-130 attack aircraft as well as representatives of Afghanistan's government, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said.
But even as Clarke and other Defense Department officials openly acknowledged that the July 1 attack killed innocent civilians, they continued to suggest that the casualty toll reported by Afghan authorities -- 48 dead and 117 injured -- may be inflated. And they insisted that the AC-130 gunship had legitimate cause to shoot when and where it did, believing it was under fire from antiaircraft weapons.
Clarke said U.S. authorities had not yet determined how many died in the early morning strike on Kakarak and several other villages in the central province of Uruzgan. A preliminary investigation last week by a U.S.-Afghan team did not find evidence, such as scores of graves, that would confirm large numbers were killed, officials said.
"The issue of the number of civilian casualties and civilians killed is much less clear," Clarke said. "We know they occurred, and we regret every one of them, but we do not have hard and fast numbers from what we have seen thus far."
At the same time, military investigators and reporters who have visited the scene have not found any of the antiaircraft weapons that U.S. officials say were seen by a U.S. ground controller firing on the AC-130.
"I don't think there is any question that our aircraft and our forces on the ground were fired at," said Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, director of operations on the U.S. military's Joint Staff, who joined Clarke at the news conference.
The air attack occurred against the backdrop of a larger military operation involving 300 to 400 U.S., coalition and Afghan soldiers hunting for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban positions. As described yesterday by Newbold, the allied troops had spent the days leading up to the July 1 attack slowly converging on the area.
Local Afghan officials have been quoted suggesting that faulty intelligence may have been provided to U.S. forces by Afghan sources wanting to settle scores. But Clarke emphasized yesterday that U.S., coalition and Afghan forces had been watching the area on and off since February, suggesting that the U.S. warplane did not act precipitously.
Still, Newbold acknowledged that the intelligence-gathering effort had left U.S. forces unaware of the large group of civilians assembled in Kakarak for an engagement party.
The attack took place in the home province of fugitive Taliban leader Mohammad Omar. Newbold said that intelligence reports had suggested "high-value individuals" might be "operating in the area."
But another senior Pentagon official said he knew of no intelligence reports that had specifically placed Omar or any other senior enemy figure in the area.
"We had nothing solid," the official said. "If we had, we would have put troops in the village, not fired on it from the air."
Although no antiaircraft weapon has been found in Kakarak, Newbold said yesterday that one truck-mounted antiaircraft gun was discovered the day after the incident about 10 miles away, together with a large cache of other weapons. He also said that over the past weekend, U.S. forces in the town of Qalat uncovered another cache that included 29 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles of various makes, including Russian, Chinese and British weapons.
"This area is extremely rugged," Newbold said. "It is a huge area that we're talking about . . . and it is not difficult to hide a AAA [antiaircraft] weapon."
With the attack threatening to undermine Afghan support for the U.S. military operation, Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has agreed to help Kakarak and the surrounding area by stationing a contingent of U.S. civil support troops there. The purpose is to facilitate international aid and local development by bolstering security in the area, Pentagon officials said.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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