The Pentagon has rejected suggestions that US military forces had hidden proof of a mistaken US bombing raid on a wedding party in central Afghanistan last month that left scores of civilians dead.
A United Nations investigation into the attack by US aircraft that killed 48 people and left 118 wounded was completed and its results handed to US and Afghan officials in Kabul earlier yesterday.
But Defence Department spokesman Mr Dave Lapan said that as Pentagon officials had yet to see the report, there could be no direct comment.
"But any impression that we're covering up or dragging our feet is patently false," he stressed.
An inquiry team visited the site in the aftermath of the bombing in Uruzgan province before producing a preliminary report, whose findings were leaked to the press. Among the findings, the Times of London reported, were that US forces had cleared out any evidence before the UN investigators arrived.
The Times report also stated the preliminary UN report raised a series of questions about the accuracy of US accounts and pegged the death toll at 80 and the number of injured at up to 200.
Afghanistan since has said 48 civilians were killed and 117 wounded, while the Pentagon said its investigators found only five graves at the site.
Mr Lapan insisted the Times report was false.
"We have been very open from the beginning. A US-Afghan preliminary team was sent within hours to the village, it had media in it, so everything was done in the open, and geared to investigate," he said.
"A full investigation team with Afghan senior military officers was then sent." UN spokesman Mr Fred Eckhard said from New York that the UN's special representative in Afghanistan, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, had asked for the preliminary report to be double-checked, though he was "not disavowing what the initial report" had concluded.
"He just asked them 'are you sure on your facts, give me a more substantiated report'," he said.
Lieut Col Roger King, a spokesman for the coalition, denied from Kabul that US soldiers cleaned up any evidence after the bombing.
"The only shrapnel and bullets and blood samples that have been picked up by US forces were those that were picked up by . . . the fact-finding team. We reported that they picked up shell-casings and shrapnel. No cover-up at all," Lieut Col King insisted.
The United Nations said it had decided not to publicly release the report. A statement by the UN Assistance Mission said: "We deeply regret the fact that there was a loss of life and injuries to civilians. And we are absolutely certain that the United States regrets that such a situation has occurred as well."
The statement, the first official UN comment on the report, added that the preliminary report contained casualty estimates "that were not fully documented and judgments that were not sufficiently substantiated".
It said a more comprehensive report was being prepared that would "provide a more detailed and accurate picture of the circumstances and consequences of the bombing".
The preliminary UN report also was unable to corroborate US statements that a US plane involved in the raid had come under fire from the ground, stating that it found no destroyed weaponry or ammunition at the scene.
It quoted witnesses saying there had been no firing at all, although Afghans have reported that civilians were gunned down in the midst of a wedding celebration, when guns traditionally are fired into the air.
The preliminary UN report also said US forces had carried out "a thorough 'cleaning' of the strike areas" shortly after the attack.
In its statement, the Assistance Mission stressed it had not meant to conduct an investigation into the air raid but was merely trying to assess humanitarian aid needs at the site.
The bombing in the rugged region of Uruzgan in central Afghanistan was a public relations disaster for Washington, which has tried to build broad Afghan support for its "war on terror" following September 11th attacks on the United States. The United States has deployed nearly 7,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan since October.
- (AFP, Reuters)