Washington: The White House and Pentagon regretted on Wednesday for the photographs showing US soldiers posing with the insurgents corpses in Afghanistan. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta called the episode a violation of US ‘core values’.
“My apology is on behalf of the Department of Defence and the US government,” Panetta told a news conference after a NATO meeting in Brussels, Belgium, The Associated Press reported.
Jay Carney, Chief Spokesperson of the US President Barack Obama, seconded Panetta, terming the act ‘reprehensible’.
The incident did not represent the America’s military standards and that Obama believed the situation needed to be investigated and those responsible held accountable, Carney said.
The Los Angeles Times published the photos on Wednesday. One shows members of the 82nd Airborne Division posing in 2010 with Afghan police and the severed legs of a suicide bomber.
The same platoon a few months later was sent to investigate the remains of three insurgents reported to have accidentally blown themselves up—and soldiers again posed and mugged for photographs with the remains, the newspaper said. A photo from that incident appears to show the hand of a dead insurgent resting on a US soldier’s shoulder as the soldier smiles.
Panetta said he condemned the behaviour, but—apparently to downsize severity of the incident—added: “This is war. I know that war is ugly, and it’s violent, and I know that young people sometimes caught up in the moment sometimes make very foolish decisions.”
There was no immediate reaction from Afghan authorities.
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