Investigators Scour Secret Tapes of the Afghan Hospital Attack

Seems the US Military outranks Congress these days...



Investigators Scour Secret Tapes of the Afghan Hospital Attack

While U.S. pilots carried out airstrikes that killed 22, video and audio recorders were capturing the tragedy from inside the cockpit.

by Nancy A. Youssef
The Daily Beast, Oct. 10, 2015

U.S. military investigators are focusing on classified video and audio recordings taken from the gunship that carried out a lethal attack on a hospital in Afghanistan, The Daily Beast has learned.

A U.S. defense official told The Daily Beast the recordings were key to the Pentagon’s emerging understanding of the assault in Kunduz that killed 22 people, including patients and medical personnel from Doctors Without Borders.

Among the recordings available from the AC-130 gunship involved in the attack are conversations among the gunship crew as they fired on the facility, and as they communicated with U.S. soldiers on the ground.

Earlier this week, Pentagon officials saw and heard the recordings, the official told The Daily Beast; the audio recordings were particularly illuminating. The recordings helped lead the U.S. military to conclude that the so-called rules of engagement—the guidelines for the use of force—were misapplied. Because of the ongoing investigation, the defense official—and the Pentagon’s spokespeople—refused to comment on the details of what the recordings captured.

Questions about the recordings of the attack came up this week in classified briefings on Capitol Hill, but the military did not make either the audio or video available to congressmen and senators who oversee the Pentagon. And even when a lawmaker directly requested to listen to the audio, a senior congressional aide told The Daily Beast, they were rebuffed by the Department of Defense, which cited its continuing investigation as a reason not to share it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/10/afghan-hospital-attack-s-secret-tapes.html

PS: I feel so much safer knowing the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex is keeping us safe mostly. Too bad about democracy. Oh, well. Just another victim of war.