It was still the early hours of the morning back in Germany when three top ISAF officers in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif met via video conference at around 9 a.m. on Sept. 4. Brigadier General Jörg Vollmer, commander of all German troops in Afghanistan, was in the north of the country. He was joined from the headquarters in Kabul by Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, the communications director for ISAF commander General Stanley McChrystal and his intelligence chief in Afghanistan, Major General Mike Flynn. The topic for discussion was the air strike near Kunduz that had been called in by German Colonel Georg Klein just seven hours earlier.
The group was alarmed. The Arab news channel Al-Jazeera was reporting on the deaths of many civilians and the trio wanted to discuss how to proceed. The transcript indicates just how tense the meeting was. The questions were brief, the answers likewise. Each man knew how much outrage any mistake by NATO would provoke. That is why McChrystal's communications director was also present. Vollmer reported briefly: "Cannot rule out that some civilians were also not (sic) involved." The other two soldiers ordered him to get more information, as quickly as possible.
Read Full Article »