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I'm Juan Gonzalez welcome to all of our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world NATO is admitting for the first time Libyan civilians were killed and injured during its seven-month bombing campaign that led to the ouster and death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi NATO made the acknowledgement after New York Times investigation revealed at least 40 civilians and perhaps more than 70 were killed by by the bombing raids the New York Times reports the victims include at least 29 women or children who had often had been asleep in homes when the ordinance hit others were killed when NATO warplanes bombed ambulance crews and civilians who were attempting to aid the wounded from earlier it strikes the New York Times reporter CJ chivvers visited several of the bombing sites to investigate the airstrikes affairs and I was rude family compounds lion maju a small farming community near sleet on the ugliest known mishap of NATO's bombing campaign took place here give all over did in the darkness of night they bumped me in my family lay down log estate a bomb struck the house of alia Liga fez collapsing the second floor in killing five women and seven children a few minutes later nearby compound belonging to al TL Giroud was hit two buildings inside were destroyed killing four men the survivors said that his neighbors rushed to help dig through the ruins of the second compound native attacked once more 18 more people died despite NATO's acknowledgement of civilian deaths the Alliance is saying it does not have the capacity or intention of investigating the deadly strikes on civilians unlike in Afghanistan NATO has not expressed condolences or given small payments to victims or their families overall NATO destroyed more than fifty nine hundred military targets and carried out 9700 strikes during the seven-month bombing campaign warplanes from France Britain the United States Italy Norway Denmark Belgium and Canada took part in the bombing we're joined now by the New York Times reporter Eric Schmidt who co-wrote the investigation with CJ Chivers Eric welcome to Democracy Now why don't we start off we talk about the latest news that's now coming out around NATO and Pakistan that you're going to a news conference over let's talk about what you found in Libya well the principal findings is your introduction has suggested was that initially NATO had said in the Secretary General of NATO had said that just threw out that seven-month air campaign they knew of no confirmed civilian casualties on the ground as a result of NATO air strikes what our investigation has shown my colleagues reporting it showed that there were at least a dozen or so instances where there were airstrikes that cause civilian casualties now granted this is a very relatively small number and the overall numbers you said 9700 strikes Ortiz that were carried out but still significant enough they were there somewhere between 40 and 70 civilian deaths and that's just what we know of of course we only saw a small sampling of the strikes sites then they have been affected so the death toll is much thought is probably put much larger and in terms of what you did find you found several instances where families were hit in their in their homes as well could you talk about one or two of those yeah what we saw in a couple of instances one was for instance there was a strike against a warehouse that we later learned from the guards who've been tending it through the many months was really only a warehouse for food this was quite close to a civilian home where a number of people were killed they were in other instances where mistaken intelligence where there was a civilian home hit that was very near another home that had been the meeting place for some of the pro-qadhafi forces so again a piece of bad intelligence just a few doors away essentially ended up meeting a death warrant for many for several family members can you introduce us to some of the family members that CJ Chivers your co-author and this piece visited the story of the little boy who was killed for example yeah we talked about this little boy who was killed in a strike early on and it was it was very sad and in terms of how again the targeting process here which would be carried out initially in in Italy and then relayed to these pilots who be flying these wartime missions usually at night using laser guided or satellite guided bombs for the precision and yet what happens is in this in this particular case bombs are falling and buildings are collapsing along or on families killing in small women in small children and women in many cases yeah I want to go back to a New York Times a video report narrated by CJ Chivers this clip begins with Anders Fogh Rasmussen Secretary General of NATO speaking in June our military commanders are very much focused on avoiding civilian casualties we are actually very very careful middle as with have details on most of the errors and labored to portray role in the war has all but flawless until this month it insisted that confirm the killing or wounding of a single civilian we have carried out this operation very carefully without confirmed civilian casualties your response to the the initial nadel declarations well here's the problem with the Secretary General's statement it was a statement that was repeated over and over again by NATO officials throughout the campaign we have no information of confirmed casualties well the problem is that NATO and the US did not have any boots on the ground at least none that they've acknowledged and so until they had such boots on the ground that they conduct their own investigation they were not going to acknowledge any kind of error even though of course that were there were times air strikes where the pro-qadhafi the regime came out and claimed casualties for strikes these were dismissed as propaganda and in one case we went back and looked at these were in one instance there was a the regime at the time of the strike had claimed maybe 80 or 90 civilian casualties that clearly proved to be exaggerated by our examination again on chris's reporting on the ground and talking to family members neighbors medical people in the area confirmed that they were probably about 30 or third five casualties or so that were the died on the scene so clearly you know and this is NATO officials pretty much acknowledged to us that again without having gone on the ground and confirming it themselves there may well have been civilian casualties the question now is what will be done about it NATO has not committed to going in on the ground to investigate these strikes as they've done in places as you noted in Afghanistan they're essentially waiting for the Libyan government to invite them in to do this so far the Libyans are preoccupied was setting up their new government and dealing with other challenges to apparently to do this and ties to the current Libyan leadership of NATO well again the NATO in the Libyan government are in contact and as a result of our our story I was told just yesterday by the NATO spokesman for instance that they are now working to gather information on unexploded ordnance these are essentially duds bombs that were dropped but didn't go off that pose a real threat to civilians including children NATO is now trying to track those because the pilots knew when their bombs didn't explode track them figure out where they are and get that information to the Libyan government so they can get it out to their people i'm told that NATO will try and get that information to the Libyan government by the end of January Eric Schmidt you just returned from Pakistan tuesday i want to ask you about the announcement that's just happening as you leave here to go off to the news conference with