PENTAGON HID ITS POSSIBLE WAR CRIME IN SYRIA

On March 18, 2019, in the final days of the successful U.S.-led campaign to wipe out the Islamic State in Syria, U.S. jets dropped several large bombs on a crowd of mostly women and children on a riverbank near the town of Baghuz. Watching the events remotely in real time at the American Air Force command in Qatar, an Air Force lawyer, Lt. Col. Dean W. Korsak, believed he had witnessed a war crime.

But as The New York Times reported this week, the Pentagon suppressed information on the attack from reaching Congress or the news media. This led Korsak to email the Senate Armed Services Committee to try to end to what he saw as a cover-up.

The email was leaked to The New York Times, and in response to questions, the Pentagon finally acknowledged the air strikes had killed 80 people — but said only four were known civilians. Officials said 16 were fighters and 60 could have been women and children who had taken up arms. If there were 64 civilian deaths, it would be the third worst case of civilian casualties in the Syrian conflict, and show the Pentagon failed in its alleged goal of minimizing civilian deaths. The Pentagon’s insistence it followed the rules is undercut by the fact that U.S.-led forces bulldozed the site after observers reported seeing dozens of dead women and children there.

Two months ago, the Pentagon acknowledged it had killed 10 civilians, including seven children, in the last drone strike before U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. The situation in Syria deserves no less than a full accounting. The apparent coverup merits a thorough, independent investigation.