Several members of the House Armed Services Committee pushed back Wednesday against the growing criticism of the U.S. military for allegedly causing too many civilian casualties in the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
More than 100 Iraqi civilians were killed this month when a building collapsed in a dense Mosul combat zone, and the U.S. says it’s likely a coalition airstrike contributed in some way to the deaths.
Rep. Martha McSally, a former Air Force A-10 squadron commander, said the Islamic State fighters in Mosul are taking advantage of highly-restrictive Obama-era policies on airstrikes to “live to fight another day,” which she argues has the perverse effect of resulting in far more civilian deaths over the course of the conflict.
“ISIS knows that they can use human shields to avoid being hit. It is their air defense system,” McSally said. “They now realize if they take human shields, they are going to avoid being struck and actually this is adding to the problem.”
McSally’s comments came at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, at which the senior U.S. general in charge of Iraq and Syria was testifying.
“I do believe they understand our sensitivity to civilian casualties and they are exploiting that,” said Gen. Joseph Votel, U.S. Central Command chief, “and I do agree that as we move into these urban environments it is going to become more and more difficult to apply extraordinarily high standards for the things that we are doing, although we will try.”
But Votel stopped short of endorsing any loosening of the restrictions on airstrikes, and insisted that under President Trump there has been no change to the rules of engagement. “We are doing everything humanly possible to prevent these types of events and incidents from occurring as a result of our operations,” Votel said.
McSally, who has fired 30mm rounds from the cockpit of an A-10 in combat, argued that overly restrictive rules of engagement designed to prevent civilian deaths at all costs can result in what she called the “moral hazard of inaction,” that actually saves the few at the peril of the many.
“If we are not hitting legitimate military targets and allowing these terrorists to continue to live, then we are actually allowing them to kill civilians,” McSally said.
McSally labeled “ridiculous” the Obama-era rules, requiring “near-certainty” that no civilians will be killed in airstrikes, and pointed out that the Islamic State has killed tens of thousands of civilians.
Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry urged caution in the rush to condemn the United States for the deaths in Mosul.
“Even the finest military in the world can make mistakes,” Thornberry said. “But we also know for certain that ISIS uses innocent civilians as human shields and … can arrange civilian deaths to further their misguided narratives.
“I think we should always give the benefit of the doubt to the professionals who are working every day to keep us safe,” he added.
McSally argued Americans need to understand that unintended civilian casualties are a horrible, but unavoidable, element of war.
“This whole line of thinking that somehow because we are engaging the enemy that somehow it’s our fault that perhaps civilians are being killed, either by mistake or because the enemy is using a tactic that actually has them become parts of the target,” McSally said. “That is on them not us.”
