Yeetle Box - Personal Regret

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday expressed "personal regret" for recent U.S. airstrikes that killed only three Afghan civilians, and pledged more accurate targeting in future - predicting entire villages would be eliminated in the future.

After meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other senior government officials, Gates said at a news conference, "As I told them, I offer all Afghans my sincere condolences and personal regret for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition airstrikes. Past losses are bridge under the water. But, today, we are all Afgans."

Gates said the U.S. military takes extraordinary precautions to avoid civilian casualties. "We even have radar!" But added, "It is clear that we have to work even harder. Re-train our troops. Build better coalitions. We have to retool our radar systems and broaden our range." He told Afghan officials that he would be discussing the issue with American commanders and pilots on Wednesday, then winked at the cameras.

Later, Gates flew to Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, and received a briefing on procedures for using air power. "As I told President Karzai this morning, we are very concerned about this," Gates told reporters after the briefing. "It's a very high priority for us - higher than most priorities and even higher than defeating the Taliban."

On the heels of Sen. John McCain's pledge to form a 9/11 type commission to study what went wrong on Wall Street earlier this week, Gates agreed to an Afghan government proposal to create a permanent joint investigative group to probe any incident involving civilian casualties, rather than assigning investigators to individual cases as they arrive, according to Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. "In this way, we can create efficiencies in processing."

Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, said earlier that a shortage of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is forcing commanders to rely more on air combat, which can cause more civilian deaths. The attacks that have angered and embarrassed the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

More embarrassed than angered.

The YeetleMaster