Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Monday ordered a new high-level investigation into a U.S. airstrike in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of women and children, according to a senior Defense Department official.The investigation by Gen. Michael X. Garrett, the four-star head of the Army’s Forces Command, will examine the strike, which was carried out by a shadowy, classified Special Operations unit called Task Force 9, as well as the handling of the task force’s investigation by higher military headquarters and the Defense Department’s inspector general, the official said.General Garrett will have 90 days to review inquiries already conducted into the episode, and further investigate reports of civilian casualties, whether any violations of laws of war occurred, record-keeping errors, whether any recommendations from earlier reviews were carried out, and whether anyone should be held accountable, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation had not been announced.The Pentagon is expected to announce the new inquiry on Monday after notifying Congress. Both the House and Senate Armed Services committees have said they are investigating the episode.Mr. Austin’s decision comes in the wake of a New York Times investigation earlier this month that described allegations that top officers and civilian officials had sought to conceal the casualties.In a news conference two weeks ago, Mr. Austin vowed to overhaul military procedures and hold top officers responsible for civilian harm, but he did not outline any systemic problems that had allowed civilian casualties to persist on battlefields in Syria and Afghanistan.The Syria airstrike, which took place near the town of Baghuz on March 18, 2019, as part of the final battle against Islamic State fighters in a shard of a once-sprawling religious state across Iraq and Syria. It was among the largest episodes of civilian casualties in the yearslong war against ISIS, but the U.S. military had never publicly acknowledged it.The classified task force investigated the strike and acknowledged that four civilians were killed, but it also concluded that there had been no wrongdoing by the Special Operations unit. In October 2019, the task force sent its findings to the Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla.But officials at Central Command did not follow up and failed to remind a subordinate military headquarters in Baghdad to do so, in what Capt. Bill Urban, a Central Command spokesman, described as “an administrative oversight.” As a result, senior military officials in Iraq and Florida never reviewed the strike, and the investigation technically remained open until the Times investigation.Mr. Austin, who became defense secretary this year, received a classified briefing earlier this month about the strike and the military’s handling of it from Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military’s Central Command, which oversaw the air war in Syria.Key Findings From the Baghuz Airstrike Investigation
Card 1 of 5Uncovering the truth.Over several months, The New York Times pieced together the details of a 2019 airstrike in Baghuz, Syria, one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State. Here are the key findings from the investigation:The U.S. military carried out the attack.Task Force 9, the secretive special operations unit in charge of ground operations in Syria, called in the attack. The strike began when an F-15E attack jet hit Baghuz with a 500-pound bomb. Five minutes later, the F-15E dropped two 2,000-pound bombs.The death toll was downplayed.The U.S. Central Command recently acknowledged that 80 people, including civilians, were killed in the airstrike. Though the death toll was almost immediately apparent to military officials, regulations for investigating the potential crime were not followed.Reports were delayed, sanitized and classified.The Defense Department’s independent inspector general began an inquiry, but the report containing its findings was stalled and stripped of any mention of the strike.American-led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site.Civilian observers who came to the area of the strike the next day described finding piles of dead women and children. In the days following the bombing, coalition forces overran the site, which was quickly bulldozed.The Times investigation showed that the death toll from the strike — 80 people — was almost immediately apparent to military officials. A legal officer flagged the bombing as a possible war crime that required an investigation. But at nearly every step, the military made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike. The Defense Department’s independent inspector general began an inquiry, but the report containing its findings was stalled and stripped of any By: Eric Schmitt
Title: Pentagon Chief Orders New Inquiry Into U.S. Airstrike That Killed Dozens in Syria
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/us/politics/pentagon-airstrike-syria.html
Published Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2021 20:08:18 +0000
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