[Salon] AFGHANISTAN AGONISTES. Re-opening a festering wound

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Mark Thompson: "A botched probe into a botched war’s ending." Gmail

AFGHANISTAN AGONISTES

Re-opening a festering wound

It was a disastrous end to a disastrous war, and the U.S. military couldn’t even get that right. On September 15, the Pentagon said it would be re-investigating the 2021 Afghan airport bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops — and more than 170 Afghans — as the U.S. chaotically pulled out of Afghanistan as its 20-year fight ended in defeat.

No, no, no, U.S. Central Command told reporters, it isn’t re-opening its official probe into the deadly attack. Rather, it’s merely interviewing about 24 U.S. troops who were at the Kabul airport when it happened, and who were never interviewed about what they witnessed that day. The Pentagon announced the do-over in a typically de rigueur Friday afternoon statement, which is when news coverage is minimal.

Former Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews told a congressional hearing in March that he was thwarted in his efforts to stop the attack. Vargas-Andrews, a sniper, lost an arm and a leg in the suicide bombing. He, and others wounded like him, were not interviewed by Pentagon investigators. “These interviews will seek to determine whether those not previously interviewed due to their immediate medical evacuation possess new information not previously considered, and whether such new information, if any, would affect the results of the investigation,” a Central Command official said.

The official November 2021 Pentagon probe (PDF) into the attack concluded it “was not preventable.” Marine General Frank McKenzie, the Central Command chief when the attack happened, said the investigation was “comprehensive, credible and definitive” when he released it in February 2022.

Within 14 hours of the attack, the U.S. military hospital at the airport “was empty of patients, with three flights taking personnel to Qatar or Germany, to include 19 U.S. casualties,” the investigation said (PDF). The investigating officer noted (PDF) he had requested — and received — more time for his inquiry “to ensure I could conduct sufficient interviews of widely dispersed forces.” That initial investigation interviewed 139 witnesses in five nations (PDF). Adding 24 more suggests that the Pentagon questioned only 85% of the available witnesses.

The tragedy of the attack is compounded by this apparently-less-than-thorough investigation. Family members of those killed and wounded have said the Pentagon hasn’t been candid about what happened that day. Congressional critics will cite the need for additional interviews as evidence of the sloppiness of the original inquiry.

“The battlefield is a confusing and contradictory place,” McKenzie said the day he released the report 20 months ago. “And it gets more confusing the closer you are to the actual action.”

The Bunker has never claimed to be a rocket scientist. But it seems pretty fundamental that if you’re investigating an explosion, you’d want to make sure you talked to all of those closest to it who survived.