This is the road to Wardak province,
once a hotbed of Taliban activity.
The road is pockmarked
from hundreds of I.E.D. explosions,
used by the Taliban to attack U.S. convoys.
>> (speaking Pashto):
>> SMITH: Wardak was a frequent target of kill/capture teams.
>> (speaking Pashto):
>> SMITH: Why did the drone attack this group?
>> (speaking Pashto):
>> SMITH: Were there Taliban in your group?
>> (interpreter speaking Pashto):
>> (speaking Pashto):
>> SMITH: We couldn't verify this attack,
but everyone here seemed to have a story.
>> (cheering)
>> (speaking Pashto):
>> SMITH: Mohammad Aalem, a taxi driver,
told me about a night raid on his house.
One night in October 2009,
he was home with his children and two brothers.
Was there anybody in the house
that was Taliban?
>>(speaking Pashto):
>> SMITH: Aalem says he was not Taliban.
Nor, he says, were his brothers.
>> (speaking Pashto):
(inhales sharply)
>> (speaking Pashto):
(Smith speaking off mic)
>> SMITH: Aalem says that after his brother was killed,
their house was then set on fire and he was taken
to Bagram prison with another brother.
He spent four years there and, he says,
he was never charged with any crime.
But the experience turned him against the Americans.
>> (speaking Pashto):
>> (speaking Dari):
>> SMITH: Throughout his presidency,
Hamid Karzai spoke out publicly
against civilian deaths from raids and other errant attacks.
>> We're going to ask the international community
to end nighttime raids on Afghan homes
and eliminate civilian casualties.
>> President Karzai increasingly became bitter.
The raiding of houses and night raids,
he was strictly opposed to it.
But the thing that particularly annoyed
President Karzai was, was the killing of civilians.
Um, and it repeatedly happened.
>> In Ghazni province, Central Afghanistan,
the dead include a woman and a child
following what eyewitnesses say was a raid by U.S. forces.
>> Certainly, the province of Kunar
has had more than its fair share of civilian casualties.
>> Digging small graves for nine children, all under 14.
General David Petraeus has since apologized for the deaths.
>> SMITH: Karzai repeatedly complained to General Petraeus
that the raids were backfiring.
>> (shouting)
>> SMITH: Protests were mounting, even as
Petraeus made efforts to reduce civilian casualties.
>> (shouting, chanting)
>> The accumulation
of civilian casualties, mistakes--
all mistakes, to be clear-- I mean, we were very, very tough.
>> SMITH: Karzai complained repeatedly, he told you
that you had to stop running night raids.
>> Again, I understand absolutely
the pressures that Karzai was under.
And I sought to convey to him the challenges with which
I was having to deal as the commander
of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
War is full of mistakes, full of incredible loss,
uh, tragedy, heartbreak, hardship,
uh, and, and casualties.
>> SMITH: When I asked General Petraeus about this,
he says, "Look, well, war is messy,
these things happen." >> Yeah, no, it happens,
but we virtually never held anyone accountable
for civilian casualties.
I mean, we paid condolences,
and sometimes we said, "It wasn't us."
Or, "Sorry, it's a mistake."
But we never held anybody accountable.