US investigation report a mere eyewash

The US military's much hyped inquiry report is out regarding the November 26 attack on two Pakistani border posts that killed 24 soldiers. As expected, no one is held responsible; instead the report blames "inadequate co-ordination by US and Pakistan military officers operating through the border co-ordination centre - including our reliance on incorrect mapping information shared with the Pakistani liaison officer - resulted in a misunderstanding about the true location of Pakistani military units." In other words, both sides share the blame for lack of co-ordination. Pakistan has rejected the report saying it is short on facts, and has categorically refuted that its forces fired first. From the information that has so far been made public, the facts belie the report's findings. It may be recalled that soon after the incident, ISPR spokesman had pointed out that Nato had information, along with exact reference co-ordinates, of the two posts' location. Hence there shouldn't have been any confusion about the placement of Pakistani military units in the area. Remarks that head of the investigation, Gen Stephen A Clark, made while addressing a video conference at Pentagon show if the attack was not deliberate, as alleged by Pakistan, it certainly was the result of intentional holding back of co-ordination on the part of American military officers. He said one Isaf official had exact co-ordinates but he had been told not to pass the same to the Pakistanis, and to only give them a general location. Elucidating he said, "On the Isaf side everybody had the exact co-ordinates, but it was passed to the Pakistani LNO [liaison officer] as a general location." When asked by a journalist as to why the Pakistanis were not given exact co-ordinates, what was the hesitancy to do that? Gen Clarke gave a new twist to the story in a long spiel as to what Americans thought of the situation, basically saying they were taking fire exactly from 'that area' and hence could not be expected to pass on the co-ordinates to the Pakistanis. Whether or not they came under fire from this side is a whole new debate; what is pertinent here is the admission by the inquiry head that Nato troops purposely withheld information from the Pakistan liaison officer. This vindicates Pakistan's position which has been saying right from the beginning that its officers were given false information. Even if the report's findings are accepted, one thing that won't change is that mistakes were made, if not intentional, unintentional, which resulted in the loss of 24 precious lives. There is no room for such mistakes in military operations. Those who make them are handed punishments. In this case no names have been named. No one gets as much as a rap on the knuckles. And no one is even apologising. Mere expressions of "deepest regret" and "sincere condolences" are unhelpful. Copyright Business Recorder, 2011