The U.S. military punished 16 service members, including a general, over the mistaken aerial attack of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan last year, but determined that the errors did not rise to the level of criminal negligence.
Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, announced the results of the investigation Friday morning at the Pentagon. None of the 16 service members who were punished will face court-martial. Some of their punishments included career-ending disciplinary letters.
“The investigation determined that all members of both the ground force and the AC-130 gun crew were unaware that the aircraft was firing on a medical facility throughout the engagement,” Votel said. “The investigation ultimately concluded that this tragic incident was caused by a combination of human errors compounded by process and equipment failures.”
The Pentagon will not release the names of any of the service members who were disciplined.
Votel said Gen. John Campbell, then-commander in Afghanistan, took action against 12 who were still in Afghanistan, which included “suspension and removal from command, letters of reprimand, formal counseling and extensive retraining.”
Of another five who had returned to the U.S., Votel said he took action against four, which included reprimand letters, “admonishment and directions that the flight crew be referred to an Air Force flight evaluation board.” The fifth service member was referred to Army Special Operations Command.
Votel said the actions didn’t rise to the level of a war crime because the attack was not intentional. “Their intention was to do the right thing. There was no intention to take a short cut or violate any rules that were laid out to them,” he said. “They made the wrong judgment in this particular case.”
The strike against the medical compound in Kunduz came in the early hours of Oct. 3, at a time when the Taliban were mounting an offensive that briefly wrested control of the northern Afghan city from government control. The ground force, along with Afghanistan special operations troops had “been engaged in intensive fighting” and called for support.
The investigation found that the AC-130 crew launched from its base 69 minutes earlier than planned and hadn’t received all of the information it needed for the strike areas. The crew also could not receive updates while in flight due to the failure of a satellite radio. The aircrew received grid coordinates for a Taliban control building, but the onboard system directed them to an open field, Votel said.
“[This] was obviously not the correct location. The aircrew attempted to find the intended target in the nearby area. Instead, they found the Doctors Without Borders trauma center that generally matched the physical description of the building relayed over the radio by the ground force.”
Central Command posted the results of the investigation after the briefing.
The Vietnam War era AC-130, which fires artillery rounds from a side-mounted 40mm and 105mm cannons as it circles its target, rained destruction on the medical compound for more than 30 minutes, killing 42 people including doctors, medical staff and patients. The U.S. made condolence payments of $3,000 each for those wounded and $6,000 for those killed.
In releasing the initial findings into the incident last November, Campbell said the attack was clearly not intentional.
“The U.S. strike upon the MSF trauma center in Kunduz City, Afghanistan was the direct result of human error, compounded by systems and procedural failures. The U.S. forces directly involved in this incident did not know the targeted compound was the MSF trauma center.”
