The Pentagon spokesman, John Kerby, congratulated the New York Times on Tuesday on the Pulitzer Prize he received for his “sad” but “necessary” investigation into civilians killed in US military strikes internationally.
The American newspaper received the Pulitzer Prize for “international” issues on Monday, accompanied by a $ 15,000 prize, thanks to a series of articles in late 2021 on the Pentagon’s horrific report on the number of civilians killed in strikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
The Times was the first American newspaper to misrepresent the UAV bombing that killed 10 civilians, including seven children, in Kabul in late August as the US military’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was under way. Marines fortified at the airport with their finger on the trigger.
“This coverage was not pleasant, it was not easy and it was not easy to give an answer then,” Kerby acknowledged during a news conference.
“We know there is progress to be made in preventing civilian casualties,” he said. “We know we made mistakes (…). “And we know that we have not always been as transparent on this issue as we should have been.”
“But the Times’ investigations” have intensified our concerns and in some cases provoked others, “he added. “This forced us to ask new and difficult questions, it forced us to give answers to these difficult questions.”
“I will not say that this process was pleasant”, and “it should not have been pleasant”, however “this is what the free press does at its best”, “it makes us speak, it makes us think again” and ” to change our mind and it helps us do our job better “.
John Kerby seized the opportunity to denounce, according to him, the indifference of the Russian government to the casualties among the civilians caused by the bombing of its armed forces in Ukraine.
“The issue of civilian casualties is something” we take very seriously, as opposed to Russia, as opposed to the violence and total destruction it is inflicting on the people of Ukraine, without any precaution, without acknowledging it, “he said. “There is no ‘investigation’, no ‘transparency’, not even an ‘attempt to avoid civilian casualties’ – ‘without taking into account the war crimes committed by (Russian) soldiers on the ground’,” he concluded.
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