Obama apologizes to Doctors Without Borders for airstrike
President Obama called the president of Doctors Without Borders Wednesday to apologize and express his condolences for a U.S. airstrike that mistakenly bombed its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing more than 20 people.
"The president assured Dr. [Joanne] Liu that the Department of Defense investigation currently underway would provide a transparent, thorough, and objective accounting of the facts and the circumstances of the incident. And that if necessary, the president would implement changes that would make tragedies like this one less likely to occur in the future," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.
The president also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to express his condolences and praise Afghan troops who worked to secure Kunduz, Earnest said.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the airstrike was a mistake. Afghan forces requested the air support while they were battling Taliban fighters in Kunduz.
"To be clear, the decision to provide (airstrikes) was a U.S. decision, made within the U.S. chain of command," Campbell said before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility."
The Pentagon initially said the airstrike was called in by U.S. forces under threat who were working with Afghan troops. Only later did Campbell say that the Afghans themselves requested the strike.
The White House had refrained from a public apology until now, saying that a full investigation was needed.
"What occurred in Kunduz over the weekend is a profound tragedy," Earnest said Tuesday.
The bombing Sunday killed at least 22 people, including 12 Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staffers. Earlier Wednesday, the group called for an independent investigation into the attack by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission because, it says, that an inquiry by the U.S. and Afghan governments would be insufficient. MSF also suggested that the incident "constitutes a war crime."
"It is unacceptable that the bombing of a hospital and the killing of staff and patients can be dismissed as collateral damage or brushed aside as a mistake," Jason Cone, the group's U.S. Executive Director, said in a statement Wednesday.