GERMANY’S DEFENCE ministry kept German chancellor Angela Merkel in the dark for five days over the September bombing in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians.
This latest claim spiced up the first day of a parliamentary inquiry into Germany’s most controversial post-war military intervention to date: the bombing of two Taliban-hijacked petrol tankers in Kunduz on September 4th. The strike killed 142 people, many of them civilians.
Conflicting information about the incident – and how the government dealt with the information subsequently – has piled pressure on German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.
Although he became defence minister a month after the strike, Mr zu Guttenberg is accused by the opposition of being economical with the truth by describing the strike as “militarily justified”.
He has since taken back that remark, telling parliament yesterday he made it on the basis of “incomplete information” from the German armed forces chief, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, who has since resigned.
The defence minister held up a resignation letter from Mr Schneiderhan in the Bundestag yesterday, in which he said the former army chief admitted not informing the minister fully about all reports on the bombing. “That is not contested,” said Mr zu Guttenberg.
On the contrary: Mr Schneiderhan told yesterday’s Die Zeit newspaper that Mr zu Guttenberg was “telling untruths” about why he stood down as army head.
“I find it slanderous what he’s saying,” said Mr Schneiderhan, without going into details.
With Mr zu Guttenberg on the defensive, opposition attention has shifted to the chancellery, asking: what did Dr Merkel know, and when?
Yesterday, after newspaper leaks, the defence ministry admitted sitting on key Nato reports for five days after the bombing before sending them to Dr Merkel – two days after she defended the strike in parliament.
“The chancellor’s statement was made on the basis of ignorance,” said opposition Green Party co-leader Renate Künast.
The Bundestag inquiry into the bombing has a lot to do: it has to examine whether the existing mandate in Afghanistan is restricted to civilian reconstruction or whether it permits the targeted killing of Taliban insurgents. It will also grapple with reports that Col Georg Klein, who ordered the strike, was acting with the assistance of elite German commandos as well as secret service information about a planned strike on the nearby German army base in Kunduz.
More than 40 witnesses have been called, including Dr Merkel: a political setback that is likely to increase public hostility towards the Afghanistan mission.
It is in this poisoned atmosphere that the Bundestag will, in the new year, have to debate adding to the 4,400 soldiers already deployed in Afghanistan.