Apparently, it is standard procedure that when an incident occurs involving the U.S. military that requires a high level investigation, the Defense Intelligence Agency does a standard intelligence review to help determine what happened. According to a lengthy report posted by CNN on Thursday, such a review has not been ordered in the case of the Minab school massacre.
“Within a week of the strike, the first two stages of a ‘battle damage assessment’ focused on answering basic questions including whether the strike hit and damaged the intended target had been completed, indicating that the US was responsible for striking the Shajareh Tayyiba school in Minab,” CNN reported, citing “three sources familiar with the matter.”
CNN continued, “But a third standard review stage, a step where analysts—typically from the Defense Intelligence Agency—review the entire body of relevant satellite imagery and other intelligence sources to provide a more holistic determination about what took place and how a strike impacted the broader mission, was not ordered, the sources said. That review would almost always be conducted in the immediate aftermath of a noteworthy strike, they said, but it had not begun as of early July.”
The independent investigation announced in March, involving interviews with service members, has been completed but has reportedly been “locked down” at U.S. Central Command headquarters preventing its dissemination even within the military.
