Doctors Without Borders, the international organization in charge of a hospital in Afghanistan bombed by an American airstrike this weekend, has called for an independent inquiry onto whether or not a war crime was committed.
Juliette Kayyem, homeland security expert and host of the "Security Mom" podcast, says it now looks increasingly likely that American troops were not following their own protocol.
"It is simply not the case that, if the Afghans ask us, we would do airstrikes," Kayyem said. "There would have to be an immediate threat to American troops or to Afghan civilian populations. There's criteria for rules of engagement that look like they were violated in this instance."
Kayyem pointed to the incident as a dire example of what can happen when ground intelligence in an area is scarce.
"Obviously at the moment it happened someone would have known it was the wrong site," she said. "It looks like we violated our own command structure at what the rules of engagement should be."
"It looks like every system fell apart in Afghanistan," she continued.
To hear more from homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem, tune in to Boston Public Radio above.
