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Newly obtained Pentagon documents show that the U.S. air wars in the Middle East have been “profound errors of intelligence” and “errors of direction,” and have killed more than 1,000 civilians in the past decade, according to the New York Times. research.
The report, which includes more than 1,300 reports of civilian deaths based on secret Pentagon documents, reduces the U.S. government’s portrayal of the war with precision bombs, the publication says.
He said the commitment to transparency and accountability was short-lived.
“Not a single record has been found to have found any errors or disciplinary action,” the newspaper reported when it said it was the first in a series of two sections.
Although the Times reported several cases earlier, its research showed that the number of civilian deaths was “drastically underestimated” by at least hundreds.
Care errors
In its report, the New York Times reviewed the cases in which civilians were killed, none of which led to the wrongful admission.
He mentioned that 120 Syrian civilians were killed outside the town of Tokhar in a July 2016 strike that reportedly killed 85 fighters at the time.
Another example was an airstrike in the Ramadi region of Iraq in November 2015 after a person was seen dragging an “unidentified and heavy object” to an ISIS (ISIL) site. A report after a review found that the object was a child killed in the attack.
The report said it caused fatal failures to target poor or inadequate surveillance footage.
Recently, in the US, the streets of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in a street where a drone destroyed by a drone was bombed, allegations had to be dropped.
It was later revealed that the victims of the strike were 10 members of a family.
Many civilians who survived the U.S. attacks were left with disabilities that required costly treatment, the report said, but mourning payments were less than a dozen.
Asked for comment, Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, told the Times: “Even with the best technology in the world, mistakes do occur based on incomplete information or misinterpretation of available information. And we try to learn from those mistakes.
“We work hard to prevent this damage. We investigate every credible instance. And we regret every loss of the innocent. ”
Without seeing it from the air
The U.S. air campaign in the Middle East has grown rapidly in recent years under the administration of former President Barack Obama as public support for ground wars has waned.
Obama said the new approach, often using remotely controlled unmanned aircraft, represented “the most accurate air campaign in history” to minimize civilian deaths.
The new technology made it possible to destroy part of a house full of enemy fighters, leaving the rest of the structure standing, the Pentagon said.
But within five years, U.S. forces carried out more than 50,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the report said, with less accurate predictions.
Completing its report, the Times said its reporters had “visited more than 100 dead sites and interviewed survivors and current and former U.S. officials.”
The paper obtained documents from the Pentagon in March 2017 through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits filed against the Department of Defense and Central Command. A new suit is looking for records in Afghanistan.
Before launching airstrikes, the U.S. military must navigate elaborate protocols to calculate and reduce civilian deaths.
But there are many ways in which the available minds can be misleading, short, or sometimes misleading.
For example, the Times said the video, recorded over the air, does not show people in buildings, under leaves or under tarpaulins or aluminum covers.
And the available data can be misinterpreted when people running to a new bombing site are assumed to be fighters, not lifeguards.
At times, the Times reported: “The men on the motorcycles who were moving in the organization were showing the ‘signature’ of an immediate attack, they were just men on motorcycles.”
A spokesman for Urban Central Command said air war planners are doing their best in very difficult conditions.
But he added that “in many combat situations, where targets are confronted with credible streams of threats and lack the luxury of time, the fog of war can lead to decisions that tragically cause civilian damage.”
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