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Title: Army May Punish Commanders Where 9 Died at Wanat
Source:
Seattle Times
URL Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht ... nworld/2010963666_wanat03.html
Published: Feb 3, 2010
Author: Greg Jaffe
Post Date: 2010-02-03 05:38:53 by Murron
Keywords: None
Views: 1398
Comments: 1
Army May Punish Commanders Where 9 Died at Wanat A military investigation into an ambush that left nine Americans dead — including Cpl. Jason Bogar, a 25-year-old soldier from Seattle — recommends that the Army consider taking disciplinary action against three U.S. commanders who oversaw the 2008 mission to send troops to the remote Afghan outpost, defense officials said Tuesday. Cpl. Jason Bogar of Seattle, at top, poses with the soldiers from his unit in Afghanistan. Only SPC Chris McKaig, on the far right, survived the battle at Wanat. The investigation into the bloody battle at Wanat, near the border with Pakistan, was undertaken last fall at the urging of Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nine soldiers were killed and 27 wounded during the attack at the outpost, which raged for several hours. Among the dead was 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, whose father, a retired Army colonel, pushed for more than a year to persuade the Pentagon to launch a probe of the battle. Also killed was Cpl. Jason Bogar, a 25-year-old soldier from Seattle. His mother, Carlene Cross, was one of the parents who pushed for the Central Command investigation. 'I hope that the Army will learn lessons from what happened, and that what they did to those guys, that kind of recklessness, won't be repeated," Cross said Tuesday. The military's report, which spans almost 4,000 pages, has been sent to Gen. Charles Campbell, the head of U.S. Army Forces Command, to determine whether formal disciplinary action should be taken against any of the officers. Campbell could decide that none of the officers should be disciplined. "Gen. Campbell has the full range of options available to a commander from do nothing to court-martial," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an Army spokesman. The report suggests that disciplinary measures be considered against Capt. Matthew Myer, the company commander, who was awarded the Silver Star for his valor in calling in airstrikes during the attack, and Lt. Col. William Ostlund, the battalion commander who oversaw the operation, military officials said. Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, reviewed the probe's findings and recommended that Col. Charles Preysler, the brigade commander who oversaw the operation, should also be considered for disciplinary action because, under Army doctrine, he would have also been responsible for some of the shortcomings, military officials said. An initial Army after action report found no fault with commanders, and concluded that they displayed "sound military analysis." But an unreleased Army historian's study of the battle, which The Seattle Times detailed in a July 30 article, documented missteps in the weeks leading up to the battle, and Central Command investigation could go to far as to trigger court-martials. . The Wanat attack and a similar ambush in the village of Kamdesh that killed eight soldiers last fall led U.S. commanders to pull troops from many remote villages that have been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the war. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commands U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, now pushes U.S. troops into the larger river valleys, where they are supposed to focus on protecting the population instead of chasing the enemy. Seattle Times staff writer Hal Bernton contributed.
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#1. To: Murron (#0)
Boy Blunder...the gift that keeps on giving...how many more of his messes lay in waity for us?
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