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Germany’s top soldier has resigned over allegations of a cover-up related to a deadly NATO air strike in Afghanistan. General Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s (pictured) move followed reports that key information about the action in September was withheld, German defense minister Guttenberg said. The strike, which was ordered by a German commander, targeted two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban militants. But dozens of civilians were also killed in the attack, which happened in the northern province of Kunduz. Gerry Hadden looks into the German role in Afghanistan. Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: There are also some unsettling revelations today about the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. They stem from a U.S. airstrike that a German commander called in, in September. The target was two fuel trucks that the Taliban had seized. The air strike destroyed the trucks but it also killed thirty civilians. Today, Germany’s top soldier in Afghanistan, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, resigned over the affair. It seems he knew the strike had killed civilians, even though the German government was denying it. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports.
GERRY HADDEN: General Schneiderhan is accused of deliberately sitting on information about those civilian deaths following the airstrike. Today, Germany’s defense minister, Carl-Theodor Zu Guttenberg, announced Schneiderhan’s departure at a meeting of the German Parliament. Guttenberg said the general has asked me to relieve him of his duties and even if I hear sarcastic laughter now, I would like to thank him for his decades of service to our country. At the same time, other German leaders sought to distance the current administration of Angela Merkel from the scandal. Labor Minister Franz Joseph Jung was foreign minister when the airstrike occurred. Today he said that Afghan officials had told him a number of civilians were killed or injured but he said the officials later stated that the Taliban and their allies were responsible. The government has promised to make public a report that General Schneiderhan had insufficient information about the danger to civilians, just prior to the airstrike and yet he failed to share that information with his superiors. Germany’s opposition parties are awaiting that report eagerly. Former foreign minister, Frank Walter Steinmeyer now leads the opposition in Parliament. He said we still don’t know who’s going to bear the political responsibility for this disdainful treatment of Parliament and the public and this is why I believe that a Parliamentary inquiry into this matter is unavoidable. The airstrike scandal could have an impact far beyond Germany. Its reverberations could reach all the way to Washington. Today’s New York Times reports that President Obama is asking allies such as Germany to send a total of 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan but the revelations about General Schneiderhan could make Germans even less enthusiastic about answering Mr. Obama’s call. Opinion polls suggest a majority of Germans want their soldiers to come home. Today’s scandal could well discourage Germany from sending even the 120 soldiers it’s pledged, so says Professor Cord Jakobeit of the University of Hamburg.
CORD JAKOBEIT: So maybe the consequence would be what’s, eighty or ninety so they reduce it a bit further and there will be more pressure on an exit option that should be on the table concerns 2012, 2013 reduction of Germany participation, etcetera. That’s imaginable. That’s something that might happen as a consequence of the scandal around this thing heating up.
HADDEN: Germany isn’t the only NATO country likely to resist the latest U.S. calls for more troops. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he won’t send any more soldiers but outside NATO, there’s at least one country willing to pony up, Georgia. It’s responding to political pressures of its own. Georgians hope to be invited into the NATO club one day. Fighting in Afghanistan is one way to score points. For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden.
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