<\/p>\n
U.S. Southern Command<\/span> is unable to cope with the volume of civilian casualty reports stemming from the military mission to abduct Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, according to two government officials. Instead, the Pentagon itself is accepting reports directly.<\/p>\n After the U.S. attacked Venezuela<\/a> in Operation Absolute Resolve<\/a> on January 3, U.K.-based watchdog group Airwars attempted to submit documentation of civilian casualties to SOUTHCOM, which oversees military operations in Latin America, then soon learned that SOUTHCOM has no mechanism for submitting these reports. After reaching out to the Pentagon, Airwars was told to submit documentation to its Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which is operated by the war secretary<\/a> and was established<\/a> to help limit unintended civilian deaths.<\/p>\n Airwars began sending reports of civilian harm incidents<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cA few days after the strikes, the DoD\u2019s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence team reached out to us to understand if we had been documenting civilian harm from U.S. actions,\u201d said Emily Tripp, the executive director of Airwars. \u201cUntil SOUTHCOM establishes their own mechanism \u2014 as CENTCOM and AFRICOM have \u2014 we will be submitting cases directly to the Center of Excellence after we publish them.\u201d<\/p>\n The need for the Pentagon to pick up SOUTHCOM\u2019s slack follows a deemphasis on civilian harm mitigation and corresponding budget cuts across the military as a result of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth\u2019s efforts to gut programs<\/a> to reduce civilian casualties<\/a>. Experts and insiders say that even a small number of civilian casualty reports is now too much for SOUTHCOM to handle. Two government officials told The Intercept that personnel devoted to civilian harm tracking and mitigation at SOUTHCOM had been whittled down from four staff to one contractor.<\/p>\n Personnel devoted to civilian harm tracking and mitigation at SOUTHCOM has been whittled down from four staff to one contractor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n SOUTHCOM\u2019s inability to adequately track civilian harm comes as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee are set to receive a classified briefing<\/a> on the the U.S. attack on Venezuela on Tuesday and President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to head SOUTHCOM \u2014 Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Francis L. Donovan \u2014 heads to Capitol Hill on Thursday for his nomination hearing<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Intercept reported on cuts to SOUTHCOM\u2019s civilian harm staff<\/a> last year, and the command has been dodging questions on the subject for months. Return receipts show that queries regarding civilian harm mitigation personnel at SOUTHCOM were read by multiple personnel at the command but never answered.<\/p>\n Col. Emanuel Ortiz, Southern Command\u2019s chief of public affairs, would not say how many personnel devoted to civilian harm issues are at work at the command. \u201cWe comply with statutory and regulatory Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) requirements and have designated personnel to perform these tasks,\u201d he told The Intercept by email, directing additional questions to the Office of the Secretary of War. That office did not provide answers prior to publication.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout adequate dedicated staff, it\u2019s unclear how SOUTHCOM is addressing these concerning reports,\u201d said Annie Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict. \u201cHow will they respond to confirmed civilian casualties? How will they prevent similar harm from occurring in the future, and what experts are they consulting to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump claimed the<\/span> January 3 attacks in Venezuela were \u201cprecise\u201d and \u201cperfectly executed<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Hegseth also praised the \u201cprecision\u201d of the strikes and the \u201cgallantry\u201d of the personnel who conducted them.<\/p>\n For more than a week, the Department of War has failed to respond to questions from The Intercept regarding civilian casualties during Operation Absolute Resolve. Pentagon press secretary\u00a0Kingsley Wilson\u00a0<\/a>did not reply to questions about whether killing civilians was gallant.<\/p>\n Airwars, for its part, has already found reports of seven incidents<\/a> in which civilians were killed or injured, or civilian infrastructure was damaged. \u201cSo far we have identified at least two civilian harm incidents with a number of named victims \u2014 thanks to diligent local reporting in the aftermath of the strikes \u2014 alongside a handful of incidents involving damage to civilian infrastructure,\u201d said Tripp.<\/p>\n Those include an airstrike that reportedly killed an elderly woman<\/a> and left two others injured in Prolongaci\u00f3n Soublette in Catia La Mar, in Venezuela\u2019s capital, Caracas, on January 3.\u00a0Another woman was killed<\/a> and her daughter was injured by an alleged U.S. airstrike on a TV and telephone antenna in the state of Miranda. Two civilians<\/a> were also reportedly killed near the Oscar Machado Zoluaga Airport in Charallave by an alleged U.S. airstrike early that same morning.<\/p>\n Trump said there were no U.S. deaths in the operation. Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela\u2019s interior minister, reported that 100 people were killed in the attacks, and at least as many were wounded. The majority of those killed appear to have been members of the security services. The government of Cuba reported that\u00a032 Cubans<\/a>, serving in the Venezuelan armed forces and interior ministry, were among those slain in the U.S. attacks.<\/p>\n Experts and lawmakers say the attacks violated U.S. and international law<\/a>. \u201cPresident Trump did not seek congressional authorization for this use of force, and Congress did not grant it,\u201d said<\/a> Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., on the attacks on Venezuela. \u201cUnder our Constitution and the law, that makes this action illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n Donovan will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday for his confirmation hearing. He is nominated for promotion to the rank of general and to lead U.S. Southern Command. Last fall, Adm. Alvin Holsey announced his retirement<\/a>\u00a0as SOUTHCOM chief years ahead of schedule, raising speculation that he objected to the attacks on alleged drug smuggling boats by Special Operations Command in the SOUTHCOM area of operations. Holsey has never publicly commented on the reason for his shock retirement.<\/p>\n \u201cNever before in my over 20 years on the committee can I recall seeing a combatant commander leave their post this early and amid such turmoil,\u201d said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, at the time.<\/p>\n The U.S. military has carried out 35 known attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September<\/a>, killing at least 123 civilians<\/a> whom it claims are narco-terrorists. Experts and lawmakers have called the boat strikes extrajudicial killings<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Intercept was the\u00a0first outlet<\/a>\u00a0to report\u00a0that the U.S. military\u00a0killed two survivors\u00a0of the initial boat attack on September 2 in a\u00a0follow-up strike. The two survivors clung\u00a0to the wreckage of a vessel attacked by the U.S. military for\u00a0roughly 45 minutes<\/a>\u00a0before Adm. Frank Bradley, then the head of Joint Special Operations Command,\u00a0ordered a follow-up attack<\/a>\u00a0that killed the shipwrecked men.<\/p>\n Following\u00a0reporting by The Intercept<\/a>\u00a0on boat attacks on December 30 and discrepancies in Southern Command\u2019s count of the total number of strikes and casualties, Ortiz disclosed that 11 civilians died<\/a> as a result of the December 30 boat strikes \u2014 eight more people than previously reported.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n