The top Democrat on a House anti-terrorism task force said Tuesday that it’s “not good” that the Obama administration’s Defense Department changed its story on how a Doctors Without Borders hospital was bombed by the U.S., and said Congress needs a full accounting of what is happening in Afghanistan.
“What’s going on in Afghanistan?” Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said on C-SPAN Tuesday morning. “What are we really doing there at this point? How could something like this happen?” Sanchez leads the Democratic side of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel.
The Defense Department originally said it called in air support to protect U.S. troops. But then on Monday, Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told Congress that Afghanistan called in the air support to protect Afghan troops, which resulted in the bombing of the hospital and the death of 22 people.
When asked what she thinks of that changed story, Sanchez said, “Well, of course, not good.” She added that the changed story speaks to the difficulty Congress can have assessing the situation in real time, and said Congress is relying on the military for an accurate picture.
“We don’t have a good sense, sometimes, of what’s going on,” she said. “And worse, as a policymaker, it’s not like they can fly in and take a look at what happened.”
Campbell on Tuesday was set to appear at the Senate Armed Services Committee to talk about the U.S. airstrike that hit the hospital, and to explain how Taliban forces managed to take control of Kunduz, the capital of Afghanistan’s northern province.
The fall of Kunduz has raised the question about whether 5,000 troops should remain in Afghanistan past 2016. Sanchez seemed to indicate opposition to that idea, by saying that President George W. Bush used the military too much.
“Sometimes I wonder if the Obama administration doesn’t understand that,” she said.
