[The
Afghan government said that it had seen the report and that it welcomed the
decision to discipline American troops. But Dawa Khan Meenapal, a spokesman for
President Ashraf Ghani, declined to elaborate when asked if the Afghan
government had reversed its conclusion that the hospital was being used by the
Taliban fighters.]
By Matthew Rosenberg
 |
An employee of Doctors Without
Borders in October 2015 inside what
remained of the organization’s
hospital, destroyed in an airstrike that left
42 people dead. Credit Najim
Rahim/Associated Press
|
WASHINGTON — Mistakes by the crew flying an AC-130
gunship, compounded by equipment and procedural failures, led to the
devastating attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan last
year, the Defense Department announced Friday, and 16 American military
personnel, including a general officer, have been punished for their roles in
the strike.
The
punishments for the Oct. 3 attack, which killed 42 people, will be
“administrative actions” only, and none of those being disciplined will face
criminal charges because the attack was determined to be unintentional. The
punishments include suspension and removal from command as well as letters of
reprimand, which can seriously damage or end a career.
The
new top officer of the military’s Central Command, Gen. Joseph L. Votel, made
the announcement during a Pentagon news conference. He said the military had
conducted “a thorough investigation,” which was “painstaking” in seeking an
“accurate account” of what had occurred.
Its
conclusion is that neither the crew members of the gunship who fired on the hospital
in the northern city of Kunduz nor the Special Forces on the ground who were
directing the strike “knew they were striking a medical facility” and that the
attack on the hospital was a result of human errors compounded by “process and
equipment failures,” he said.
“This
was an extraordinarily intense combat situation,” General Votel told reporters.
The troops on the ground, he added, “were doing a variety of actions at the
same time: They were trying to support their Afghan partners, they were trying
to execute resupply operations, and they were trying to protect themselves.”
But
General Votel was clear on one point: The hospital was a protected facility
that was at no time being used by active Taliban fighters, though some wounded
insurgents had been treated there. His statement directly contradicted the
claim by many senior Afghan officials that the hospital was being used by
Taliban fighters and was therefore a legitimate target.
Still,
the release of the investigation’s findings and the announcement of the disciplinary
measures, some of which were first leaked by defense officials last month, were
unlikely to satisfy Doctors Without Borders and other human rights groups, many
of which have said the attack may have constituted a war crime and called for
an independent criminal investigation.
After
the announcement, Médecins Sans Frontières, the French name of Doctors
Without Borders, reiterated its calls for an independent investigation, saying
in a statement “that it cannot be satisfied solely with a military investigation.”
“Today’s
briefing amounts to an admission of an uncontrolled military operation in a
densely populated urban area, during which U.S. U.S.
John
Sifton, the Asia policy director of Human Rights Watch, disputed
General Votel’s assertion that the airstrike did not constitute a war crime
because it was the unintentional result of mistakes and equipment failures, not
an intentional attack.
The
failure to bring any criminal charges was, “simply put, inexplicable,” Mr. Sifton
said.
“General
Joseph Votel’s assertion that a war crime must be deliberate, or intentional, is
flatly wrong.” Mr. Sifton added. He said that there are legal precedents for
war crimes prosecutions based on acts that were committed with recklessness, and
that recklessness or negligence do not necessarily absolve someone of criminal
responsibility under the United States military code.
The
Afghan government said that it had seen the report and that it welcomed the
decision to discipline American troops. But Dawa Khan Meenapal, a spokesman for
President Ashraf Ghani, declined to elaborate when asked if the Afghan
government had reversed its conclusion that the hospital was being used by the
Taliban fighters.
The
broad outlines of what took place in Kunduz, which days earlier had been
overrun by Taliban fighters, were established in the weeks and months after the
attack: An American AC-130 gunship, responding to a call for support from
Afghan commandos who said they were under fire, mistook the hospital for the
intended target — a building in the city being used as a base by the Taliban —
and unleashed sustained and repeated barrages from its heavy guns on the
medical facility, despite frantic calls from Doctors Without Borders to
military commanders.
Friday’s
announcement and the release of the report by investigators, which runs more
than 3,000 pages, provided the most detailed accounting of the American version
of events to date.
The
chain of problems began before the AC-130 even left the ground, when an
unrelated emergency call for air support forced the aircraft to take off 69
minutes ahead of schedule, the report said. There was no time to fully brief
the crew, and a database that would have allowed them to properly identify the
hospital as a protected building had not been uploaded to the aircraft’s
computers.
Once
the AC-130 was airborne, a satellite radio on board failed, cutting off the
aircraft’s data link — and the ability to upload the database and other vital
information, General Votel said.
After
the hulking gunship arrived in the skies above Kunduz, insurgents fired a
missile at it, forcing it to retreat to a safe position miles from the intended
target, the local headquarters of Afghanistan
This
was no simple evasive maneuver for the gunship. The AC-130 moves slowly, and it
is designed to circle above its target in one- to two-mile loops so it can
bring to bear a frightening array of weaponry mounted on one side of the
aircraft, including a 105-millimeter howitzer.
The
targeting instruments aboard the gunship are typically calibrated to pinpoint
targets at relatively short distances. The report said that the need to briefly
move miles out to avoid ground fire resulted in the crew’s being unable to find
the target after it returned to its original position and prepared to commence
its attack.
When
the crew entered the coordinates of the target provided by Afghan forces —
which were correct — the gunship’s systems instead directed the aircraft to an
empty field, the report said. The field was obviously not the target. The crew
members’ only option was to rely on their own eyes.
Working
off a description of the building being used by the Taliban that was passed by
Afghan forces through American Special Forces on the ground, the crew ended up
training the gunship’s weapons on the Doctors Without Borders hospital, which
was about 400 meters, or 1,300 feet, from the correct target.
At
one point, a crew member, identified in the report as the TV sensor operator, actually
spotted the correct target and said it fit the description that was relayed by
Afghan forces. But after “several attempts” to clarify which building should be
struck, the aircraft attacked the hospital.
The
attack commenced at 2:08 a.m. , and General Votel said that the gunship
used all its weapons, including the howitzer, decimating the hospital.
It
took only 11 minutes for Doctors Without Borders to contact “several U.S.
But,
the report said, it was initially unclear who exactly was firing on the
hospital. It was not until 2:38 a.m. that the Special Forces commander on the
ground realized the AC-130 was attacking the hospital and called off the attack,
the report said. The timeline conflicts with accounts by witnesses, who said
the attack lasted more than an hour.
Investigators
concluded that steps taken by several American service members during the
attack were “inadequate,” and they identified 16 people whose conduct warranted
disciplinary action. Twelve were punished by Gen. John F. Campbell, the
commander of the American-led coalition at the time of the attack, and four
others were disciplined by General Votel, who at the time was the commander of
United States Special Operations command.
General
Votel said on Friday that the 16 service members were not being identified for
privacy reasons and because some were still serving in sensitive deployments
overseas.
Mujib
Mashal contributed reporting from Kabul , Afghanistan
