WASHINGTON, Feb 28: The United States is unrepentant over the mistaken raid on compounds in Afghanistan’s Hazar Qadam village in which at least 16 civilians were killed.
Both Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Central Command chief Gen Tommy Franks have admitted that the raid, on Jan 23, took the lives of people who were not linked to Al Qaeda or the Taliban, but insisted that US troops did nothing wrong.
US authorties have carried out a preliminary investigation into the bungled operation, which was based on faulty intelligence, but said there is no intention of taking disciplnary action against the US troops involved.
The Washington Post has taken umbrage over the administration’s attitude, saying in an editorial on Wednesday the explanations offered by Mr Rumsfeld and his senior advisers, if not deliberately false, are “driven by an arrogant refusal to own up to truth when it happens to be embarrassing”.
Newspaper reports from Afghanistan published here have quoted Afghans as insisting the Americans were manipulated by bad information from local Afghans engaged in a feud amongst themselves.
The Pentagon has said the Americans were fired upon first, but witnesses to the raid dispute this also.
The Post editorial said the US clearly erred in selecting the Hazar Qadam compounds as a target, as did the commanders who ordered a midnight raid without bothering to check with local US allies.
“By refusing to acknowledge those self-evident facts, much less conduct a serious investigation that would insist on accountability, Mr Rumsfeld and Gen Franks send the message that the loss of innocent Afghan lives at US hands is not a matter of importance; that Afghan allegations of US misconduct are not to be taken seriously, even when they are numerous and repeated; and that nothing need be learned or corrected following such tragic mistakes.”
The paper said Afghans had been remarkably willing to forgive mistakes, but it seemed unlikely that over a period of time either Afghans or the world at large would be ready to “accept the arrogance and high-handedness with which these incidents so far have been treated in Washington”.
The New York Times on Wednesday carried a long investigative piece on the Hazar Qadam raids based on interviews with locals. The Pentagon has relied on what it calls the unconventional nature of the campaign in Afghanistan to explain away mistakes and collateral damage.