Pentagon chief orders closer focus on preventing civilian deaths in airstrikes
By Ellen Mitchell - 01/27/22 06:36 PM EST Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday ordered the Defense Department to develop an “action plan” to improve its mechanisms for how it prevents civilian deaths and the way it responds to and acknowledges claims of civilians harmed by U.S. military operations.
In a two-page directive to top civilian and military officials, Austin asks for a “Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan” that outlines steps to take and the resources required to apply possible solutions to the problem. He said he wants the plan within the next 90 days.
“We can and will improve upon efforts to protect civilians,” Austin wrote in the memo. “The protection of innocent civilians in the conduct of our operations remains vital to the ultimate success of our operations, and as a significant strategic and moral imperative.”
The directive comes after public outcry and significant scrutiny over several high-profile U.S. drone strikes, including a botched Aug. 29 attack in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed 10 people, including seven children, and one in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of women and children.
The new guidance also comes the same day federally-funded think tank Rand Corp. released a study which found “considerable weaknesses” in how the U.S. military investigates, addresses, and reduces civilian harm.
DOD’s internal reporting on civilian casualties can be unreliable, incomplete and not easily accessible to commanders, which limits the military’s ability to understand the root causes of and patterns to civilian casualties, the Congressionally-mandated report found.
“DoD has too few personnel trained in civilian harm issues. It lacks structures and capabilities for key tasks, such as analyzing and monitoring civilian harm trends over time and archiving civilian harm-related data,” Rand said in a release on the study.
To address that, Austin in his memo also ordered the establishment of a “civilian protection center of excellence” to quickly institutionalize the Pentagon’s knowledge, practices and tools for preventing, mitigating and responding to civilian harm. The center would take recommendations from the Rand report.
more
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/591751-pentagon-chief-orders-closer-focus-on-preventing-civilian-deaths-in-airstrikes
