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Rumsfeld Says Inquiry into Afghan Air Attack Just Beginning

(Defense Department report)

Tuesday, July 2, 2002
U.S. Department of State

Rumsfeld defended the accuracy and precision of modern U.S. weaponry, but acknowledged that mistakes do happen and likely always will.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that a joint U.S.-Afghan team has begun its investigation of a U.S. air attack in which Afghan officials claim that many civilians were killed and wounded, but may not develop accurate information on the situation for "another day or two."

Such a careful inquiry is "the appropriate way to proceed," he said.

Both Rumsfeld and General Peter Pace, who joined him in a press briefing July 2 at the Pentagon, said that about all that is known now is that two U.S. air operations were proceeding in the area at about the time of the incident: a B-52 was dropping precision munitions on cave complexes, and an AC-130 returned fire against anti-aircraft weapons firing from the ground.

Pace said the B-52 dropped seven munitions.

"Six of them flew to the targets that they were designed to hit, which were cave complexes. The seventh one ... hit an intervening hill mass about 3,000 yards short of its intended target. That hill mass had no people on it, and the air controller on the ground believes that there was no one in that area where it impacted," the general said.

As for the AC-130, he said it "returned fire on six individual locations that were spread over many kilometers."
(More: U.S. Department of State News Source)
2002 © U.S. Department of State's Office of International Information.

Dan