Senator Warren Raises Concerns with Defense Department on Undercount of Civilian Casualties in Annual Report

In full transparency, the following is a media release from Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office. She was elected by voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to serve the state in Washington DC in the US Senate. She is a Democrat. (stock photo)

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WASHINGTON DC –  – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and U.S. Representative Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, raising concerns that the Department of Defense’s (DoD) September 2022 report to Congress on civilian casualties appears to undercount civilian casualties from U.S. military operations and that DoD is not exercising its authority to make amends to civilian victims and survivors. 

“In this year’s report, the Department reported that approximately 12 civilians were killed and five were injured in Afghanistan and Somalia as a result of U.S. military operations during 2021. However, the report did not admit to any civilian deaths in Syria, despite credible civilian casualty monitors documenting at least 15 civilian deaths and 17 civilian injuries in Syria in 2021. The report also appeared to undercount additional civilian casualties from Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) that occurred prior to 2021,” wrote the lawmakers. 

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Senator Warren’s amendment in the fiscal year (FY) 2018 National Defense Authorization Act requires DoD to issue an annual report on civilian casualties that result in U.S. military action. DoD’s most recent report to Congress found that 12 civilians were killed and five were injured in 2021. DoD’s counting of civilian harm often is vastly different than those found by news reporting and investigations from outside groups.

The CJTF-OIR report only disclosed four civilians killed and 15 civilians injured from a 2018 air strike in Baghuz, Syria, but local sources alleged that the strike resulted in at least 160 civilian deaths, including up to 45 children. 

The lawmakers note that this underreporting is partly because DoD is not giving appropriate weight to outside sources when investigating civilian casualty reports. A 2021 DoD-sponsored RAND Corporation assessment on DoD civilian casualty policies found that “officials did not sufficiently engage external sources for information before concluding that reports of civilian casualties were not credible”, and that DoD’s standard of proof “often required having positive proof indicating civilian harm in military information,” failing to put proper weight on outside source reporting. 

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The lawmakers also raise concerns that DoD’s report revealed that it only made one ex gratia payment in 2021 – despite an annual $3 million authorization from Congress for these payments and a large number of cases that DoD has confirmed as credible. These payments are used to express condolence to civilian victims and survivors and to “advance the U.S. mission on the ground, build rapport with local communities, and reinforce the U.S. relationship with the host-nation government.”  

“The FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes key provisions to assist in strengthening civilian harm protection, such as the creation of the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence to focus on these matters, dedicating resources to CHMR-AP implementation, expanding reporting requirements, and extending the authority of ex gratia payments,” continued the lawmakers. “We urge DoD to swiftly implement these provisions as part of its monitoring and prevention of civilian harm going forward,”

Given these concerns, the lawmakers are calling on DoD to improve mechanisms for reporting civilian harm, including a dedicated phone hotline for reporting casualties and translating DoD’s website to report civilian harm into local languages. The lawmakers are asking DoD to answer a set of questions about how it plans to address their concerns by January 16, 2023. 

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