CAMDEN — WASHINGTON (AP) — Two years ago, President Barack Obama stood before a military audience and spoke of the "heartbreaking tragedy" of accidental civilian deaths caused by U.S. military strikes in the fight against terrorism in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Now, with news of the death of two Western hostages in a CIA drone strike — American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto — the president has received a brutal reminder that every U.S. commander-in-chief may have to face the loss of civilians as collateral damage in wartime.
"It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally and our fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes, can occur," Obama said.
Today, the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement of condolences to the hostages' families.
"Having lost thousands of innocent civilians in the war against terrorism, Pakistan can fully understand this tragic loss and stands with the families of Weinstein and Lo Porto in this difficult time," the ministry said. "The death of Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Lo Porto in a drone strike demonstrates the risk and unintended consequences of the use of this technology that Pakistan has been highlighting for a long time."
Meanwhile in Italy, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni is seeking to explain to Parliament why it took three months to learn about the death of Lo Porto in the U.S. drone strike. Gentiloni told lawmakers today that in an inaccessible war zone, where hostage-taking is frequent, it took that long for U.S. intelligence to verify Lo Porto had been killed. Military technology may grow ever more sophisticated, but there still is no surefire way to ensure innocents will not be caught in harm's way, even by the most elite of U.S. forces. In 2010, the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team 6 tried to rescue Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove from Taliban captors in Afghanistan. She was killed by a grenade thrown in haste by one of the American commandoes.
"Sometimes you get it wrong," said retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, a professor of military history at Ohio State University. "There's no way to have a perfectly clean war."