Intel system said down during hospital attack

WASHINGTON — The Army’s $5 billion intelligence network, which is designed to give commanders battlefield awareness but has been criticized for years as a boondoggle, was not working in Afghanistan during the recent American air attack on a hospital, according to a member of Congress who has been in touch with military whistleblowers.

Significant elements of the Distributed Common Ground System, a network of computers and sensors designed to knit together disparate strands of intelligence, were off line in Afghanistan when U.S. commanders approved an airstrike Oct. 3 that killed 22 staff, patients and others at a Doctors without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Rep. Duncan Hunter wrote Tuesday to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“The purpose of DCGS is to enable commanders and service members to ‘see and know’ the battlefield and prevent incidents like the airstrike on the hospital in Kunduz,” wrote Hunter, a California Republican, combat veteran and Armed Services Committee member who has been a persistent DCGS critic.

“Senior Army leaders have gone to extraordinary lengths in recent years to deny evidence of the failures of the DCGS program, and I am asking for your help to prevent them from doing so following this tragic incident,” he wrote.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said he could not comment on the Hunter letter because he had not yet seen it.

It’s unclear whether the breakdown of key DCGS systems contributed to the decision to approve the air attack, which Pentagon officials say was a mistake.