Pentagon caught lying about 'friendly' conditions before Air Force crash

The Trump administration previously claimed that conditions in the sky were "friendly" when two Air Force crafts collided over Iraq, killing six service members, but now, according to The Atlantic, "Initial intelligence reports told a different story."

The incident took place on March 12, less than two weeks after the start of President Donald Trump's war with Iran, and involved two KC-135 Stratotankers, which are used for midair refueling jobs and can carry roughly 200,000 gallons of jet fuel. Following the collision, one craft landed safely after sustaining damage to its tail, while the other crashed, killing the six individuals on board.

The U.S. Central Command claimed in a statement issued later that same day that the collision took place in "friendly airspace" and that it was not the result of hostile fire. Now, however, initial reports about the incident have emerged that paint a notably different picture than the Trump administration's official story. The Atlantic was able to view these reports and relayed their contents in a piece published Tuesday.

"Initial intelligence reports told a different story," the report stated. "They indicated that the U.S. government had detected anti-aircraft fire by Iran-backed militias in the area around the time of the collision and that the pilots may have been forced to take evasive actions. The reports, which haven’t been previously made public, were described to us by two current officials and one former official. But Centcom’s leaders, citing different, more highly classified information, were convinced that those initial reports were mistaken."

It continued: "Militias had never fired surface-to-air missiles that could have threatened the aircraft, according to their assessment. The initial reports may have picked up instead on launches of missiles aimed at ground targets. That’s why the Pentagon statement asserted that no hostile fire was involved and that the skies were friendly. An Air Force–led investigation is expected to conclude that the disaster was an 'avoidable mishap' by pilots operating in congested airspace, military officials told us."

This situation, the report argued, "fits a Trump-administration pattern" whereby key details are omitted from public statements that might create a more nuanced and complicated impression of events. Particular effort has also been put into curating stories so that the U.S. military's strength is accentuated, while the "resilience of Iranian forces and their armed proxy groups across the Middle East" is downplayed.

"The contrasting accounts of what preceded the crash point to the confusion of a crowded battlefield, as well as to the serious threat that Iran’s proxies in neighboring Iraq pose to the U.S. and Israeli war effort 23 years after President George W. Bush ordered Iraq’s invasion in pursuit of Saddam Hussein," the report continued.

It added: "President Trump said within hours of the start of the Iran war that one of his goals was to 'ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.' But those groups remain a potent force: Iran-sponsored militias have pounded U.S. facilities across Iraq with relentless rocket and drone attacks since the war began, forcing a near-total evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad."