If something can go wrong in war, it will.
That’s the bottom line from 10 Downing Street today, where Britain’s prime minister said Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove may have been killed by her American rescuers last Friday in Afghanistan, rather than by her Taliban captors.
David Cameron said that General David Petraeus has told him that Norgrove could have been killed by a grenade set off by a member of the U.S. rescue team. Reports initially suggested she had been killed by a Taliban bomb detonated once her captors realized a rescue attempt was underway. In any event, responsibility for the death of a 36-year-old woman, who only wanted to do good in the world’s most hellish places, remains the Taliban’s.
“Linda could have died as a result of a grenade detonated by the task force during the assault,” Cameron said at a news conference. He says he takes responsibility for authorizing the rescue attempt. She had been seized two weeks earlier in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.
That’s the way these sad tales usually unfold:
— It was their fault.
— It might have been our fault.
— It was our fault and we’re sorry.
Never understood the wisdom of rushing out with a story that later has to be retracted. Not that it makes any difference to Ms. Norgrove or her loved ones.