{"id":828606,"date":"2021-09-29T17:43:30","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T21:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=828606"},"modified":"2021-09-29T17:43:33","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T21:43:33","slug":"gen-mckenzie-says-military-knew-within-hours-that-kabul-drone-strike-hit-civilians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gen-mckenzie-says-military-knew-within-hours-that-kabul-drone-strike-hit-civilians\/","title":{"rendered":"Gen. McKenzie Says Military Knew Within Hours That Kabul Drone Strike \u2018Hit Civilians\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgen-mckenzie-says-military-knew-within-hours-that-kabul-drone-strike-hit-civilians%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=828606&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<aside id=\"right1forarticles\">\n<\/aside>\n<div id=\"ob-read-more-selector\" readability=\"41.879783881135\">\n<p>Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said at a hearing Wednesday that the U.S. military knew within four or five hours that an Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul \u201chit civilians,\u201d even though the Pentagon didn\u2019t acknowledge that civilians were killed until more than two weeks later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew the strike hit civilians within four or five hours after the strike occurred and U.S. Central Command released a press release saying that,\u201d McKenzie said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?514922-1\/defense-secretary-austin-generals-milley-mckenzie-testify-afghanistan-withdrawal#\">in response to a question<\/a> from Republican Mississippi Rep. Trent Kelly during the House Armed Services Committee hearing. \u201cWe did not know, though, that the target of the strike was in fact a mistake until some time later. Took us a few days to run that down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>WATCH:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin both told the House Armed Services Committee they knew within \u201cseveral hours\u201d that the drone strike killed civilians.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) initially claimed in an Aug. 29 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.centcom.mil\/MEDIA\/STATEMENTS\/Statements-View\/Article\/2756206\/us-central-command-statement-on-defensive-strike-in-kabul\/\">press release<\/a> that the drone strike \u201celiminat[ed] an imminent ISIS-K threat to Hamid Karzai International Airport\u201d with \u201cno indications\u201d of civilian casualties at the time. Milley on Sept. 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/17\/flashback-watch-chairman-mark-milley-lie-five-times-in-one-minute-about-the-infamous-isis-k-strike\/\">described<\/a> the strike as \u201crighteous\u201d and said \u201cprocedures were correctly followed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But an <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/10\/drone-strike-afghanistan-isis-kabul-civilian-zemari-ahmadi\/\">investigation<\/a> published by the New York Times on Sept. 10 included exclusive security camera footage and eyewitness accounts, corroborating reports that the U.S. military didn\u2019t know \u201cwhom it was hitting\u201d and in fact killed Afghan civilians.<\/p>\n<p>McKenzie&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/17\/central-command-investigation-confirms-afghanistan-us-drone-strike-killed-innocent-family-no-isis-k-fighters\/\">admitted<\/a> on Sept. 17 \u2014 more than two weeks after the strike \u2014 that it killed \u201cas many as ten civilians, including up to seven children,\u201d and no ISIS-K members. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/21\/pentagon-review-afghanistan-drone-strike-10-civilians\/\">announced<\/a> Sept. 20 that an internal investigation would be conducted. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/09\/28\/kenneth-mckenzie-mark-milley-inhofe-senate-armed-services-committee-biden-undercuts-afghanistan-withdrawal\/\">(RELATED: Gen. McKenzie Undercuts Biden Statements On Afghanistan Withdrawal)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In his opening remarks during Wednesday\u2019s hearing, McKenzie told the House Armed Services Committee that the strike \u201cwas a mistake\u201d and he \u201ctake[s] full responsibility.\u201d But he defended CENTCOM\u2019s initial assessment, stating that the decision to launch the strike was \u201cbased on our intelligence read of the situation on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said at a hearing Wednesday that the U.S. military knew within four or five hours that an Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul \u201chit civilians,\u201d &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-828606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}