Court Of Inquiry

posted by Jennifer Hlad on Jan 23

Col. Nicholson began testimony this afternoon, speaking to the panel via a video teleconference from the Pentagon.

Nicholson served as commander of Task Force Spartan and the Army’s 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division for 16 months, where he was commander of most American service members in the eastern part of Afghanistan.

He explained that the Nangahar province contained a lot of rough terrain, including the area Osama Bin Laden is last known to have been. He said the area of operations was created specifically for a special operations reconnassaince unit he could not name, and that unit was tasked with learning more about the area.

MSOC-F was considered “a perfect fit” for that area because of their unique recon capabilities, he said.

Though Nicholson did not have command authority over MSOC-F, the unit was supposed to support Task Force Spartan and coordinate with Nicholson about their plans and missions.

Nicholson said he personally briefed Maj. Galvin about the situation in the area, showed him the exact area of operations MSOC-F was expected to focus on and told him his expectations about MSOC-F coordinating their activities with him.

He said MSOC-F “was bringing very unique capabilites that no one else had on the battlefield,” specifically recon capabilities, and they were expected to focus on recon operations.

The way the enemy fights in Afghanistan is different than in Iraq, he said, because unlike Iraq, where insurgents generally fight in urban areas, the Taliban generally focuses on remote areas in Afghanistan.

Nicholson’s focus was on the “human terrain” of the area, and was the link to the people in the battlespace. He said he expected special forces units in the area to coordinate with him so that their operations would not cause problems with the civilians in the region.

While Nicholson said he told Galvin to focus on recon in their area — and not worry about “working targets,” Galvin asked about doing missions in other areas, Nicholson said. He mentioned one area where MSOC-F may be needed for their recon abilities.

So, Nicholson said, he was surprised when he learned MSOC-F was conducting operations outside their area, without coordination with Nicholson.

“I asked, ‘Why are they up there?’” he said. “We did not need help in that area.”

After March 4, Nicholson said he learned MSOC-F had been conducting numerous operations without any coordination with Task Force Spartan. Instead, they were submitting their plans to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force — as required — but not letting Nicholson know.

In fact, Nicholson said, he didn’t know MSOC-F was doing a mission on March 4 until he heard that there had been an attack.

His initial reaction, he said, was “What are we doing out there?”

If he had known about what they had planned, Nicholson said, he would have raised a number of questions.

Soon after hearing about the attack, Nicholson said he started getting numerous reports of civilian casualties. The number reported was the highest he had heard from direct fire in his time in the country, he said.

He also explained that the convoy left the area, which was different than how an Army convoy would have proceeded. Army operating procedure calls for staying on site, treating the civilian casualties and figuring out what happened before turning the site over to Afghan officials.

“We would stay and remain in possession of the battlefield,” he said.

Previous testimony has indicated the Marines were supposed to leave the area of the attack.

Soon after the attack, the Shinwari tribe went to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Nangahar governor in an effort to stop American operations in the Nangahar province.

Civilian deaths are very significant in Afghanistan, Nicholson said, and the Taliban has actually lost some ground because of causing some civilian deaths. The cultural consequence is such, he said, that “the enemy tended to avoid populated areas in Afghanistan.”

Nicholson also explained that it would not be unusual for the dead and wounded to be gone from an attack site shortly after the attack — as in this case, where Army military police arrived roughly 30 minutes after the incident and found no bodies or injured people.

“They have a cultural requirement to bury the dead before the sun sets,” he said. “When someone’s dead, they move quickly.”

Likewise, the bomb blast and subsequent shooting happened on the region’s only paved road, which led to hospitals. It would not be strange for civilians to head to the hospital shortly after being wounded, he said.