White House: ‘Imprudent’ to Compare Israeli WCK Strike to Afghan Strike ‘Three Years’ Ago in ‘Different’ CircumstancesIan Hanchett5 Apr 20243,231
4:04
On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby responded to questions on how the 2021 U.S. strike in Afghanistan that killed an aid worker is different from the Israeli strike that killed World Central Kitchen workers are different by stating that it’s “imprudent to try to compare two things that happened three years apart in two different conflicts.” And there was an independent investigation of the Afghanistan strike, “and that independent investigator found that there was no need for personal accountability to be had, but did find that the U.S. military needed to make some systemic changes, procedural changes in how we looked at intelligence and acted on that intelligence.”
Host Martha MacCallum asked, [relevant exchange begins around 3:25] “When we left Afghanistan, we had a similar, tragic Hellfire missile attack that landed and killed ten people, a man who was carrying water, bringing water as part of humanitarian aid, and, at that point, when you were asked, what are we going to do about that, who’s accountable for that? This is what you said, John.”
She then played video of Kirby saying, “None of their recommendations dealt specifically with issues of accountability. … So, I do not anticipate there being issues of personal accountability to be had with respect to the August 29 airstrike.”
MacCallum then asked, “So, there were seven children that were killed by that U.S. Hellfire missile, no accountability, you said, was part of the plan. So, why is this so different than what we did there?”
Kirby answered, “Well, look, these are events that happened three years apart, two different geographic locations, two different countries, two different sets of circumstances, two different types of threat
that were being evaluated, and [two completely] different militaries that were involved, with two different chains of command. So, I think we’ve got to be careful comparing both events too closely. We, too, had an independent investigation, Martha, of that incident, and that independent investigator found that there was no need for personal accountability to be had, but did find that the U.S. military needed to make some systemic changes, procedural changes in how we looked at intelligence and acted on that intelligence. The Israelis, similarly, have said the same thing about this event this week with the WCK strike, that they’re going to make some systemic changes. Now, we’re glad to hear that and we’re going to be watching to see what those changes are and how they can put them into effect. But these are two different events.”
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/04/05/white-house-imprudent-to-compare-israeli-wck-strike-to-afghan-strike-three-years-ago-in-different-circumstances/
