office of secretary of defense. you also understand difficult to reach out on the ground in afghanistan, reach people. but we are very interested in doing that and will move on it based on our ability to do that. your question about this and oth, i ll echo what i said. i reject a parallel between this operation and a strike on isis-k target because we will have an opportunity to further develop the target and time to make that pattern. that time was not available because this was imminent threat to our forces. it is important i emphasize that. we did not have luxury of time to develop pattern of life and other things. we struck under reasonable certainty. probably our strikes in afghanistan going forward will be under a higher standard, that s a policy matter, not purely military matter. but i don t think you should draw any conclusions about our ability to strike in afghanistan in the future based on this particular strike.
how do you think this moment would be marked in this long chapter of american drone strikes in afghanistan and elsewhere. in the same briefing you heard the american military talk about other drone strikes taking place they defended and said were justified and then the last statement there, john kirby said they wouldn t investigate the one that took place in kandahar. yeah. as you mention, afghans have already known that this killed civilians, the evening newscasts that i have been watching, that they watch there, the parents, mothers, wives of these civilians who were killed were interviewed. the mother talking about seeing the body parts of her toddler when she stepped outside of her house. this is something that the afghans have dealt with for many years now. drone strikes have killed civilian after civilian. yes, it killed militants as well. but unfortunately a lot of civilians have been killed through this method.
associated with isis. this was a strike that the u.s. would rely on from now on in afghanistan, what does this incident say about the reliability of future strikes. point one, very much associated with isis-k, less than 24 hours later, rockets would be launched against the airfield. we had good intelligence to think point one was an area where isis was centered. second part of your question about whether this will effect future oth operations, let me be clear, this was a self defense strike taken under self defense rules of engagement based on imminent threat to attack us. that is not the way we would strike in an oth mission going
accountability assigned, and big battle over whether that s the appropriate level. as somebody asked him, who pulled the trigger. well, that s a strike commander farther down the chain than the four star general. the words out of his mouth were i am responsible for this mistake. only person to fire him is the president, maybe secretary of defense. short of that, i think it will be months before we hear an investigation and results of investigation and find out whether somebody gets knocked down a grade or just procedural changes are made. either way, i m sure there will be unsatisfied people when they hear the results. something tells me people in afghanistan were probably not waiting for results of the u.s. investigation, they knew and perhaps had suspected all along these were civilians, the initial report suggested seven children were among those that were killed.
into afghanistan against isis-k targets. for one thing, that would not be a self defense strike, it will be done under different rules of engagement. and we would have a lot more opportunity probably than we had under this extreme time pressure to look at the target, to use a phrase you re familiar with, soak it with multiple platforms. none of these things were available to us given the urgent and pressing nature of the imminent threat to our forces. are you considering reparations and what does it say about the overrising capability. what are the risks involved carrying out strikes going forward. as i said in the statement, we are considering reparations for this. that will be a matter for policy. we are in consultation with