(Washington) US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has urged the military to do more to avoid civilian casualties during airstrikes, after several deadly blunders that tarnished the reputation of the US military.
Posted yesterday at 6:04 p.m.
Protecting civilians is a “strategic and moral imperative,” Austin noted in a memo to the military chain of command released Thursday.
“We will review how we assess incidents that may have caused harm to civilians, recognize harm inflicted on civilians […] and incorporate lessons learned in the preparation and execution of future operations,” he added.
The secretary gave the Pentagon three months to submit an action plan to minimize civilian casualties, then another three months to develop new instructions for drone operators and their chain of command.
He also decided to create a “center of excellence” to develop better tools capable of reducing the risks for civilians, and to gather on a single database all the incidents known by the various commands of the American army. in the world, in order to learn from it.
These measures were recommended by a report by the Rand think tank commissioned by the Pentagon at the request of Congress.
Submitted in February 2021 to the Pentagon, but made public on Thursday, this report concludes that the various commands of the American army do not sufficiently share the lessons learned from their mistakes and that the American Department of Defense does not compensate the families of the victims of coherent way.
The American army has thus granted “ex-gratia” compensation much more often – that is to say that it grants financial compensation to the families of the victims without acknowledging its legal responsibility – in Afghanistan than in Iraq, has noted one of the report’s authors, Michael McNerney.
“The Pentagon needs to explain more clearly the purpose of these payments,” he told reporters. “Are they there to help US forces or unit commanders, as some have used them in Afghanistan, or should they be used to recognize wrongdoing and hold them accountable? »
These reforms come after the publication of several surveys by the New York Times showing that the drone strikes favored since 2014 by the American army in its war against jihadist groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have caused thousands of civilian victims, including many children.
The daily also accused an American special force operating in Syria – sometimes in the greatest secrecy – of having bombed three times in March 2019 a group of civilians near Baghouz, the last stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. Syria, killing 70 people including women and children.
The most recent US military blunder occurred on August 27 in Kabul, in the final days of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, when a drone strike mistakenly killed 10 civilians, including seven children.