US: Pentagon documents reveal “deeply flawed” Middle East air war

Pentagon documents show that air battles were fought To us Inside Middle East They were marked by “deeply flawed intelligence” and caused the deaths of thousands of civilians, including many children, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The newspaper said the collection of classified documents, which included reports of more than 1,300 civilian casualties, belied the government’s interpretation of the war waged by precision bombs.

Promises of transparency and accountability have gone unfulfilled, he said.

“None of the assessed records contain a record of irregularities or disciplinary action,” the newspaper said in the first part of two installments, adding that reported civilian deaths were “extremely underestimated”.

Deadly mistakes

In the three cases cited, the bombing was carried out on July 19, 2016 by special forces To us Against what is believed to be the three concentration zones of the Islamic State group in northern Syria. The initial report recorded the deaths of 85 militants, while the dead were 120 farmers and villagers.

According to the report, poor or inadequate surveillance footage continued to contribute to fatal errors.

Most recently, To us He had to admit his mistake by claiming that there were bombs in the vehicle destroyed by the drone in Kabul in August. The victims of the attack were 10 members of the same family.

Many of the civilians who survived the U.S. attacks were disabled, requiring expensive treatment, but less than a dozen indemnities have been recorded.

“We try to learn from those mistakes”

Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for the Federal Command, told the Associated Press that “despite the best technology in the world, errors occur on the basis of incomplete information or misinterpretation of available information, and we seek to learn from those errors.”

“We are working diligently to avoid this kind of harm. We are investigating every credible case and we mourn the loss of every innocent life,” he added.

Air Campaign To us Inside Middle East In the final years of former President Barack Obama’s term, it grew as popular support for a war on the ground waned.

Obama said the use of remote-controlled aircraft favors “the most accurate air campaign in history,” which has the potential to reduce civilian casualties.

But in five years, the Air Force To us It carried out more than 50,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, according to the Times.

(With information from AFP)

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