It's true German troops
do take the lead role in "the quiet" northern areas of Afghanistan so if it turns hot for them, they have to decide what measures need to be taken.
US-German rift emerges over Afghan deaths case
snip
German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said the Taliban's possession of the two tankers "posed an acute threat to our soldiers." German officials have said the tankers might have been used as suicide bombs.
......Meanwhile, Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, the top U.S. and NATO spokesman in the country, said
German troops let too many hours pass before visiting the site of the bombing Friday. He explained that it's important to hold the ground after a strike and determine what happened before the enemy comes out with its own version of events.
The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, visited the site Saturday where two charred trucks and yellow gas cans sat on a riverbed. He asked a top commander in Regional Command North about the response time.
"Why didn't RC-North come here quicker?" McChrystal asked Col. Georg Klein, the commander of the German base in Kunduz.
....On Sunday, Smith said that in McChrystal's judgment the response time "was probably longer than it should have been." German troops in Afghanistan have long been criticized for avoiding combat operations, even as militants have increasingly infiltrated northern Afghanistan the last year, destabilizing the once-peaceful region.
German commanders watching images from the U.S. aircraft could see about 120 people, McChrystal said Saturday. The commanders decided that the people were militants and ordered the airstrikes, Smith said, even though images provided by the U.S. aircraft would have been grainy and difficult to see.
Whether the
German commanders or the U.S. pilot are at fault for any civilian casualties may turn into an inner-NATO tussle.
Smith said the ground force commander "is the decision maker for close air support. That's doctrine." But he also conceded that a pilot can refuse an order to drop a bomb.
snip
German troops have long been criticized for restrictions that limit the battle their troops see. A U.S. based military analyst, Anthony Cordesman, said German troops don't have "the situational and combat experience" to confront Taliban on the ground.
"They're as oriented toward staying in their armored vehicles as any group I've met," Cordesman said. "They're not active enough to present much of a threat to the Taliban most of the time."
Klein rejected the claim that his troops lacked combat experience.
"Since I arrived here we have unfortunately seen many combat situations and my soldiers performed very well," he said.
"But the thing that's always given us a very good reputation in the civilian society here is that we tried as best as possible to exclude any civilian casualties, and I've got very good feedback on that from the Afghan people," he said.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090906/D9AI0CBG0.html Now that the knee jerk reactions are settling;
Afghan and NATO investigations are just beginning, but both German and U.S. officials already appeared to be trying to deflect blame.
Seems German troops were slow to respond to the beheading incident of civilian drivers and the pursuit of the bogged down fuel trucks up a dry river gully. Could it have been an ambush ? They ( Germans ) called for eyes in the sky and proceeded with caution in an area that was considered a quiet zone. I wonder when that aircraft video the Germans made decisions over will be declassified or outright leaked as soon as possible on the net ?
Seems nobody wants to point a finger at the whack a mole movements made by the taliban in all this, especially the Afghan nationals living in the quiet northern region.
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