Reason why US bombed a Hospital in Afghanistan -Inaccuracies Remain in Location Data for USAID Health Program

Remember that hospital that the US bombed, causing a public relations
nightmare.

Well, here is the report below from the Special Inspector General for
Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that points out the US State Dept and
their aid provider, USAID, are responsible for filing correct geographic
location information for such facilities which is used in a database by the
military to avoid such blunders.

However, USAID failed to be accurate in their geographic codes, possibly
resulting in bombs hitting the hospital since it's correct location
information was not in the database.

I worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the State Dept and USAID folks there
were never focused on professional accuracy - they were focused on emotional
and liberal "capacity building" issues, and this is one result - they ignore
the need for ensuring correct geographic information to prevent health
facilities from being bombed.

So the military did release the bombs, but hit the hospital since USAID
failed to provide accurate information to avoid bombing the location.

The SIGAR report also described other failures by USAID.

Vance Jochim