Drone attacks by the US Army since 2014 against “jihadist” groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have been ill-prepared and executed, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties, a new investigation released this Saturday indicates.
This New York Times investigation, based on 1,300 Pentagon reports of civilian casualties received by a US daily under the Transparency in Administration Act (FOIA), creates a “clean war” image through “Precision strikes” and are regularly fired by the US Armed Forces.
“The American war was marked by erroneous information, premature and inaccurate rocket attacks and the death of thousands of civilians, including numerous children,” the newspaper concluded. “None of the communications resulted in disciplinary action or sanctions.”
The documents show that the cause of civilian deaths was often a “lack of confirmation,” namely a tendency to draw conclusions according to what is considered likely, according to the New York Times.
The people who flocked to the bomb site were considered members of the “jihadist” group, the Islamic State (EI), and not members of the rapid response service. Ordinary motorcycle riders have been labeled an “information column” and have been interpreted as the “signature” of an impending attack.
Promises of transparency since Barack Obama, the first president to backing drone attacks to save the lives of American soldiers, have been replaced by “opacity and impunity,” adds the newspaper, which sent several targeted inquiries to the Pentagon and the US General Command (Centcom) to obtain these documents.
Some of the cases mentioned were already known, but the investigation shows that the number of civilian casualties recognized by the Pentagon was “clearly underestimated.”
Since the start of operations in Syria and Iraq against ISIS in 2014, the international coalition acknowledged in a report released in August “that at least 1,417 civilians have been accidentally killed in coalition ‘raids’ since the start of operations in both countries. country.
Centcom spokesman Bill Urban, quoted by The New York Times, pointed out that “even with the best technology in the world, errors still occur, whether due to misinformation or misinterpretation of available information.” “We do our best not to do wrong, we investigate all credible cases. And we mourn the death of all innocent people, ”he said.
