Pentagon Chief Expected to Discuss 2019 Airstrike That Killed Dozens

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III is expected connected Wednesday to marque his archetypal nationalist comments astir a U.S. airstrike successful Syria successful 2019 that killed dozens of women and children, Pentagon officials said.

Mr. Austin, who became caput earlier this twelvemonth aft the Biden medication began, received a briefing connected Tuesday astir the onslaught and the military’s handling of it from Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the caput of the military’s Central Command, which oversaw the aerial warfare successful Syria. The Pentagon has scheduled a quality league for 2:30 p.m.

The defence caput requested the briefing aft speechmaking an investigative study published implicit the play by The New York Times detailing the onslaught and allegations that apical officers and civilian officials had sought to conceal the casualties.

On Monday, John F. Kirby, the Pentagon’s apical spokesman, declined to remark connected details of the strike, a bombing astatine Baghuz, Syria, connected March 18, 2019, that was portion of the last conflict against Islamic State fighters successful a remnant of a once-sprawling spiritual authorities crossed Iraq and Syria. It was 1 of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the yearslong warfare against ISIS but had ne'er been publically acknowledged by the U.S. military.

Several options are disposable to Mr. Austin. He could bid a caller probe into the strike, which was carried retired by a shadowy, classified Special Operations portion called Task Force 9, arsenic good arsenic into the handling of the task force’s probe into the onslaught by higher subject office and the Defense Department inspector general. He besides could endorse the task force’s findings and General McKenzie’s reappraisal of the incident.

The task unit investigated the onslaught afterward and acknowledged that 4 civilians were killed, but besides concluded determination had been nary wrongdoing successful the unit. In October 2019, the task unit sent its findings to the subject office successful Baghdad, arsenic good arsenic to the Central Command office successful Tampa, Fla.

But the bid successful Baghdad failed to reappraisal and adjacent retired the inquiry, and Central Command did not travel up and punctual the Baghdad bid to bash so, Capt. Bill Urban, the Central Command spokesman, said connected Wednesday earlier Mr. Austin’s briefing.

As a result, elder subject officials successful Iraq oregon Florida ne'er reviewed the incident, and the probe technically remained an unfastened lawsuit until the Times investigation.

“Should we person followed up? Yes,” Captain Urban said successful a telephone interview, blaming the mishap connected “an administrative oversight.”

The Times probe showed that the decease toll from the strike, which killed an estimated 80 people, was astir instantly evident to subject officials. A ineligible serviceman flagged the bombing arsenic a imaginable warfare transgression that required an investigation. But astatine astir each step, the subject made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike. The Defense Department’s autarkic inspector wide began an inquiry, but the study containing its findings was stalled and stripped of immoderate notation of the strike.

In an email to the Senate Armed Services Committee this spring, the ineligible serviceman who witnessed the onslaught warned that “senior ranking U.S. subject officials intentionally and systematically circumvented the deliberate onslaught process,” and that determination was a bully accidental that “the highest levels of authorities remained unaware of what was happening connected the ground.”

The Times probe recovered that the bombing by Air Force F-15 onslaught jets had been called successful by Task Force 9, made up mostly of the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force. The task unit was successful complaint of crushed operations successful Syria. Military sources who spoke to The Times said the secretive task unit circumvented oversight by claiming the immense bulk of its strikes required contiguous enactment to support allied troops from imminent threat. Often, subject officers said, nary imminent menace was present.

Last week, aft The Times sent its findings to U.S. Central Command, the bid acknowledged the onslaught for the archetypal time. In a connection it said that the 80 deaths were justified due to the fact that the task unit had launched a self-defense onslaught against a radical of fighters who were an imminent menace to allied forces connected the ground.

Key Findings From the Baghuz Airstrike Investigation

Central Command told The Times that the onslaught had included 3 guided bombs: a 500-pound weaponry that deed the archetypal radical and 2 2,000-pound bombs that targeted the radical fleeing the archetypal blast. This week the bid corrected itself, saying each 3 bombs were 500-pound munitions.

The bid said the 3 strikes killed 16 fighters and 4 civilians. As for the different 60 radical killed, the connection said it was not wide that they were civilians, successful portion due to the fact that women and children successful the Islamic State sometimes took up arms.

Human rights advocates expressed outrage this week astatine the onslaught and the military’s handling of it, and demanded that Congress unfastened an autarkic investigation.