WASHINGTON—Senior U.S. Army officers at one
of Afghanistan's largest military bases were "derelict in their
duties" when they oversaw the removal and attempted incineration of 474
copies of the Quran in a February incident that sparked days of deadly riots,
according to a special investigation.
Afghan protesters burn a U.S. flag during a
protest in Jalalabad province in February.
The report, released Monday, said
commanders in a National Guard unit responsible for security at Bagram
Airfield—along with rank-and-file troops—repeatedly failed to consider the
implications of a botched attempt to purge the prison library of books used by
detainees to trade messages and notes.
The official examination offered the U.S.
military's most extensive explanation of the Quran burnings, which led to
disciplinary action on Monday against six members of the Army, including senior
leadership of a National Guard battalion that oversaw the attempted destruction
of the religious books.
"It all came down to a lapse in
leadership," said Army spokesman Col. Jonathan Withington. "As
leaders, these individuals have a requirement to ensure proper actions through
supervision and enforcing standards."
The incident ignited nationwide riots that
left more than three dozen people, including two U.S. soldiers, dead. President
Barack Obama apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who demanded that the
Americans face public trial in his country.
Also on Monday, the U.S. military said it
had disciplined three Marines over a video made in 2011 and posted this year on
YouTube that showed four service members urinating on dead Taliban fighters.
The military declined to say what
discipline the nine service members received. Possible penalties ranged from a
demotion and a letter of reprimand to a loss of pay or extra duty. The nine
weren't identified.
Over the weekend, military officials in
Afghanistan informed Mr. Karzai and other Afghan leaders about the findings in
an effort to contain any possible protests over what may be viewed by some as
lenient punishment, U.S. officials said.
While the initial incident was the catalyst
for widespread protests, American officials in Kabul were optimistic that
Monday's actions wouldn't trigger serious violence in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military completed the
investigation report about the Quran burnings in March, but released only a
redacted version of the 53 pages of findings on Monday, more than six months
after the incident.
While the report found there was no
malicious intent, it concluded that the "tragic incident" was the
result of distrust between Afghans and Americans at the base, a lack of
leadership, and cultural ignorance on the part of American soldiers.
The investigation recommended disciplinary
action against the commander of the National Guard unit involved in the
incident, along with its senior intelligence and operations officers. It also
recommended disciplinary action against a fourth Army officer and a
noncommissioned officer.
But the investigation also laid blame on a
civilian Afghan interpreter working with the soldiers to help identify covert
notes and extremist writings hidden in thousands of books at the Bagram prison
library.
The investigation concluded that the
soldiers relied too heavily on the linguist, who concluded that as many as
three- quarters of the library books contained dubious material that should be
removed.
The trouble began in mid-February when soldiers
at Bagram came to suspect that detainees were using library books to trade
messages.
During the examination of the books, the
linguist, who wasn't named in the report, described some interpretations of the
Quran in the library as akin to a "Nazi rewrite of the Bible" that
should be removed, the report said. Afghan investigators who later examined the
books rejected the linguist's assessment and said they wouldn't be viewed as
extremist translations of the Quran.
The linguist's conclusions led the team to
remove nearly 2,000 books—including 474 copies of the Quran. The battalion
commander directed the team to "get rid of it," the report said.
The team decided to burn the books, which
led to a series of missteps and confrontations with Afghans who tried to stop
the soldiers from burning copies of Islam's holiest book.
When another Afghan linguist raised
concerns about the decision, a counterintelligence officer told one of the
battalion's noncommissioned officers that incinerating the books was a
"bad idea," the report said.
Later, several Afghan soldiers tried to
stop the Americans from loading the books on a truck, the report said. One even
tried to physically block the Americans from taking the Qurans away.
Fearing a confrontation, the soldiers in the
truck rushed away to the base burn pit while the Afghans raised concerns with
other Americans at the base, who dispatched a rapid response team to
investigate.
But the team, unfamiliar with the base,
went to the wrong burn pit and returned without finding the truck.
At the burn pit, the Americans tried to
bypass the Afghans working at the incinerator and threw the boxes directly into
the fire. When one Afghan at the pit saw that the boxes contained copies of the
Quran, he immediately tried to rescue the books.
As the unarmed Americans rushed away, the
Afghans used a bucket loader with its scoop filled with water from a nearby
puddle to douse the fire and rescue dozens of copies of the Quran from the
flames.
"My central finding is that we have
not yet achieved a level of cultural awareness within our ranks that puts
respectful treatment of the Quran and other religious material to the forefront
in our conduct," the investigation concluded.
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