President Barack Obama on Wednesday called the head of Doctors Without Borders to apologize for a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed 12 aid workers, as the relief group stepped up its calls for an independent inquiry into an attack it has labeled a possible war crime.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama spoke with Doctors Without Borders president Joanne Liu and expressed his condolences for the Friday strike against a hospital in northern Afghanistan.
“When we make a mistake, we are honest, own up to it and apologize,” Earnest told reporters at the White House. “The Department of Defense goes to great lengths to prevent civilian casualties, but in this case, there was a mistake, and it’s one that the United States owns up to.”
At least 22 people, including the 12 Doctors Without Borders staffers, were killed early Saturday when a U.S. AC-130 gunship launched repeated attacks on the facility in the city of Kunduz, where Afghan forces are battling to oust Taliban fighters who overran the city a week ago.
Earnest said Obama promised a transparent and thorough investigation “and if necessary will implement changes to make sure tragedies like this one are less likely in the future.” Obama also spoke by phone with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to express condolences for the “loss of life” and to “commend the bravery of the Afghan national forces.”
Earnest declined to say whether the White House would support demands from the aid group — known in French as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF — for an independent probe of the incident. The Pentagon, NATO and the Afghan government are conducting their own investigations into the attack.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva earlier in the day, Liu said the proposed commission would gather evidence from the United States, NATO and Afghanistan. After that, the charity would decide whether to seek criminal charges for loss of life and damage.
The exchange came a day after Gen. John F. Campbell, the head of U.S. and allied countries, told Congress that the strike was not intended to target the hospital, adding to an evolving Pentagon account of the incident.
Campbell said the U.S. aircraft, often used to support Special Operations forces, acted in response to a request from Afghan troops facing a Taliban attack. He said the hospital was “mistakenly struck.”
But numerous questions remain about how the strike, in which an AC-130 gunship conducted repeated bombing raids on a building housing the hospital’s emergency rooms and intensive care unit, could have happened.
Campbell described the incident as a mistake, but he did not specify whether the American pilots had tried to hit another target and missed or whether they intended to strike the hospital building but did not know it was a medical facility.
Neither have officials said whether U.S. forces violated their own rules of engagement in Afghanistan, which permit the United States to use air power in three situations: for counterterrorism operations, in self-defense and to protect Afghan forces “in extremis.”
U.S. military officials have revised their account.
On Monday, speaking at the Pentagon, Campbell said the attack was authorized after Afghan troops, under attack by the Taliban, requested American air support. That contradicted earlier statements.
