Rumsfeld Addresses ‘Unfortunate’ Attack

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday that it is “unfortunate” that more than a dozen Afghan fighters were killed by Army Special Forces last month in a nighttime attack on what U.S. troops thought were Al Qaeda or Taliban compounds.

But he insisted that the raid, which targeted two enclaves in the Hazar Qadam Valley before dawn Jan. 24, was “no mistake” because the Americans fired in self-defense after fighters in one of the compounds began shooting at them.

Afghans in the other compound did not open fire, and more than two dozen were taken into custody without loss of life, according to Rumsfeld.

“The forces that went in, in the instances where they were not fired on, they did not use lethal force,” he said. “In instances where they were fired upon, they did use lethal force, which is exactly what their rules of engagement provide. . . . They used good judgment throughout the process.”

Immediately after the raid, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials described it as a successful step in the campaign to ferret out rogue forces. The 27 men taken into custody for interrogation included several senior Al Qaeda or Taliban leaders, they suggested.

The U.S. has since released the detainees, saying they were wrongly captured. Senior U.S. officials have said CIA operatives paid $1,000 or more to each family that lost a relative in the incident. And unofficial apologies have been offered to victims’ relatives, officials said.

Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, said earlier this month that American commanders have been ordered to tighten coordination with Afghan government officials to prevent confusion on the ground.

“I’ve asked everybody to be sure our coordination is OK,” Franks told reporters.

Villagers say those killed and captured were partisans of a local anti-Taliban commander who supported the U.S.-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai.

The villagers claim that some died in their beds while others were handcuffed with heavy plastic strips, then beaten by American soldiers.

On Thursday, Rumsfeld confirmed that the dead were not connected to terrorists or the deposed Taliban regime.

But he denied that prisoners were beaten, or killed after being handcuffed.

Some may have been wounded or injured while being subdued before being handcuffed, said Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also participated in Thursday’s briefing to announce preliminary results of an investigation into the incident.

Secretary Says Army Staked Out Sites

Under close questioning at his daily news briefing, Rumsfeld rejected a suggestion that the Afghans who were killed were innocent victims.

“Let’s not call them innocents. We don’t know quite what they were. They were people who fired on our forces,” he said.

Although some Afghans and others have suggested that U.S. forces were tricked by one warlord’s supporters into attacking those of a rival, Rumsfeld said he understood the decision to strike was based entirely on information compiled by American operatives.

For several weeks before the raid, Rumsfeld said, U.S. observers watched the two sites. Using criteria that he declined to describe, they concluded that the compounds were terrorist-related.

The evidence was “persuasive and compelling,” Rumsfeld said, but not strong enough to justify an airstrike, so ground action was ordered instead.

Under cover of night, two Special Forces teams were flown by helicopter to the Hazar Qadam village of Oruzgan. When one of the teams was spotted and fired upon, it returned fire, Rumsfeld said.

Between 14 and 21 fighters were killed and a number wounded in the ensuing firefight. One American soldier suffered a minor ankle injury.

Although the subject of civilian casualties has become a sensitive one for the Pentagon, Rumsfeld staunchly defended the Hazar Qadam raid.

“I do not think it is a mistake for people to observe carefully and make a judgment about behavior on the ground,” or to order a ground action when the evidence of terrorist links was not sufficient to support an airstrike, he said.

No Disciplinary Action Expected for Soldiers

“And once on the ground, it seems to me it is no mistake at all, if you’re fired on, to fire back.”

Would disciplinary action be taken against some participants in the assault? he was asked. “Why would there be?” he replied. “I can’t imagine why there would be any.

“I don’t think it’s an error. I think it’s just a fact that circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan are difficult. It’s untidy. It is not a neat situation where all the good guys are here and all the bad guys are there,” he said.

U.S. forces are under orders to “lean forward, not back” in the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, he said, and must rely on their experience and best judgment.

Some news reports have suggested that the decision to move on Hazar Qadam may have been influenced by the fact that some local tribesmen traditionally wear black or white turbans of the kind once used by the Taliban.

Also, the large quantities of weapons and munitions seized--and presumably observed being taken into the two compounds before the raid--may have come from a local program to disarm the populace.

Rumsfeld said he had no further information on several other incidents in which U.S. forces have been accused of hitting groups of people who were not affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.