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WASHINGTON: A research by the RAND Company think-tank launched on Thursday faulted the US army for “appreciable weaknesses” and inconsistencies in its evaluate of allegations of civilian casualties, and the Pentagon introduced a broad evaluate.
The US army is below intense scrutiny over its procedures to protect towards civilian casualties following a high-profile, mistaken drone strike in Kabul on Aug. 29 that killed 10 civilians, together with seven kids.
Not solely did the US army botch the focusing on however, within the strike’s preliminary aftermath, the Pentagon’s evaluation concluded that it killed Daesh militants making ready a bombing assault towards US troops.
The unbiased RAND research, which was required by congressional laws, concluded systemic weaknesses on the Division of Protection (DoD) have been inflicting it to fall wanting its duties on civilian casualties.
“DoD isn’t adequately organized, educated, or outfitted to meet its present duties for addressing civilian hurt,” the report concluded.
In conflicts, the US army usually has restricted entry to focused areas earlier than or after strikes, counting on intelligence gathered remotely from sources like drone surveillance and satellite tv for pc imagery.
RAND discovered the US army generally compounds this downside by failing to adequately speak to individuals from exterior the US authorities or armed forces who might need entry to info on the bottom.
Nevertheless, a 2018 Joint Workers evaluate discovered that 58 p.c of civilian casualties recognized between 2015 and 2017 got here from exterior sources, RAND mentioned.
“We discovered that DoD’s present strategy to assessing, investigating, and responding to civilian hurt has appreciable weaknesses in key areas and is inconsistent throughout theaters,” the report discovered.
The report additionally famous that investigating civilian casualties usually falls to junior personnel “who don’t obtain formal coaching.”
Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum on Thursday asking for the creation of a plan on civilian hurt “mitigation and response” within the coming months and the creation of civilian safety middle of excellence later this 12 months.
A senior US protection official, briefing reporters on Austin’s resolution, mentioned incorporating info from sources exterior the US authorities and US army can be key to the reforms.
“We are likely to rely closely on what’s in our personal knowledge findings, and I feel we have to construct a system and likewise an expectation that different sources of knowledge … are constructed into this and have credibility,” the official mentioned.
“That’s not one thing that we do persistently properly, and that’s one thing that we intend to alter.”
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