"Fair chance" US had role in Mosul civilian deaths - US commander

WASHINGTON, March 29 (KUNA) -- A US top army official affirmed here Wednesday that there is a "fair chance" that the US had a role in the Mosul civilian deaths.
Army General Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command said during a House Committee on Armed Services hearing that these are "absolutely tragic and heartbreaking situations." He stressed "we take every allegation seriously and -- we have and are executing a well developed process to assess and if necessary investigate each of these allegations." He reiterated "there is a fair chance that our operations may have contributed to civilian casualties," affirming "that this investigation continues and there is still much to learn from this." He added "we acknowledge our responsibility to operate at a higher standard. It is my responsibility as a combatant commander to ensure that our forces operate in accordance with those goals and standards." "We are doing everything humanly possible to prevent these types of events and incidents from occurring as a result of our operations," he remarked.
Votel indicated "we have a general officer assigned as the investigating officer to help us address and understand and discover the facts of this case." "We were able to visit the actual site yesterday and gather both additional evidence and perspective on this situation. In addition, we are reviewing over 700 weapon systems videos over a 10 day period that followed this alleged strike -- incident to ensure that we understand the effects of the munitions we dropped in this vicinity," he noted.
He affirmed the investigation will "look at the behavior of the enemy and it will look at how our actions may have played a role in any civilian casualties. The investigation will confirm or deny our initial impressions and highlight the lessons learned." "While we consider and establish accountability over our actions in this incident, I think is also important to clearly recognize that the enemy does use human shields, has little regard for human life and does attempt to use civilian casualty allegations as a tool to hinder our operations. And so they bear responsibility for this as well," he stressed. (end) si.gb