Pentagon Says Kunduz Hospital Attack Was Not A 'War Crime'

NPR

Published April 29, 2016 at 12:33 PM CDT

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Supporters of Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) gather in Union Square to commemorate the one month anniversary of the bombing of a MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan on November 3, 2015 in New York City. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

The crew of the Air Force warplane that destroyed a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan last year did not have access to the “no-strike list” that specifically forbade targeting it, a Pentagon report says today. But the Pentagon says that lapse and the airstrike that killed more than 40 people at the Doctors Without Borders hospital was “caused by a combination of human errors” – not by deliberate action. That’s why US officials say the strike is not a “war crime,” as Doctors Without Borders and other critics have charged.

NPR’s national security editor, Phil Ewing, joins Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson to discuss the report.

Guest

Phil Ewing, national security editor at NPR. He tweets @philewing.