US admits blunder in NATO attack on Pakistan

The U.S. is poised to concede for the first time that it bears significant responsibility for last month’s American airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani troops, U.S. officials said, an admission that is expected to embarrass the American military but points to a way out of the deepening mistrust between the two countries.

A military investigation has found that U.S. and Afghan commandos incorrectly concluded there were no Pakistani forces in the Afghan border area where the coalition was conducting an operation on Nov. 26, according to U.S. officials familiar with the report. That assessment cleared the way for an airstrike that devastated Pakistani positions.

After the initial strike, the U.S. compounded its mistake by providing inaccurate data to a Pakistani military representative at a border-coordination center, missing an opportunity to stop the fighting, these people said.

The new report’s conclusions uphold key portions of Pakistan’s version of events. It also conflicts with some early U.S. accounts, which said Pakistanis gave an all-clear that opened the way for the most deadly friendly-fire incident of the 10-year Afghanistan war.

The earlier U.S. accounts were based on preliminary and incomplete debriefings of service members involved in the incident, officials said, while the complete investigation is based on computer records, radio reports and other documentation. U.S. military investigators were denied access to Pakistani officials, including the representative at the border center, officials have said.

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