CNN’s Jim Sciutto Grills West Point’s John Spencer On Defense of Civilian Deaths in Gaza

CNN’s Jim Sciutto grilled John Spencer, the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, as to why his assessment of the civilian death toll in Israeli military operations in Gaza is consistently different from that of other military analysts.

Numerous international urban combat analysts, governments, and other organizations have argued that the Israeli Defense Forces have been heavy-handed in targeting elements of Hamas in population centers during Israel’s ongoing response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against its people.

Spencer dismissed the opinions of experts on modern warfare by arguing that his opinion was more valid, as he had been on the ground with the IDF numerous times throughout the last 10 months.

“Wes Bryant, special operations with a joint terminal, he was a joint terminal attack controller during the U.S. war on terror,” Scuitto noted. The CNN reporter further pointed out defense analyst Wes Bryant had found “a systematic disregard for fundamental principles of international law” by the IDF when hitting military targets.

That assessment also concluded the IDF’s attacks on Hamas had resulted in “disproportionate harm to” Palestinian civilians – including women and children.

Spencer dismissed Bryant and claimed he alone had a broader understanding of the conflict than other experts. A transcript reads of his conversation with Sciutto reads:

SPENCER: So, to compare Gaza or the operations against Hamas embedded in 400 miles of tunnels, tunnels, and bunkers, and to use whatever data point that they’re comparing, one is it sounds like a misunderstanding of what the law of war requires, especially a proportionality assessment. So what’s the military advantage of a target? And then what are the expected collateral damage and the feasible, feasible steps taken to prevent civilian casualties, like evacuating cities and prior notice to attack and intelligence.

So, I think that the difference is one is an understanding of the law of war requirements to do proportionality assessments. And then the data which these people, not citing anybody, don’t have access to. So to what they do is infer, Jim, they do what’s called text-based –.

SCIUTTO: John, in fairness, I’m quoting – I’m quoting to you someone who is quite aware of the law war. He worked in special operations for the U.S. military in the joint terminal attack – as a joint terminal attack controller, making exactly those decisions. And he examined not the data about U.S. military interactions prior, but Israeli military activity in Gaza. So, he’s looking at the same data and coming to a different conclusion.

SPENCER: So far as I know, Jim, that author has not visited Israel or Gaza and embedded with the IDF or the targeting cell. So, he’s making an analysis without the actual body of data that you would need, which would be the information that Israel had when they’re doing their targeting, whether individual strikes or operations. So, I’m saying the person you’re quoting is making an inference based on the effects of operations, but not the data in which a law of war proportionality assessment would include.

What intelligence did you have when you took those strikes, as in what was the target, what was expected collateral damage, and what did you do to prevent it? So I’m saying you’re quoting somebody who is making an inference without all of the information which I found a lot of people do or they do what’s called lies, damn lies and statistics and take the effects of military operations and compare it to what they know, or a completely different contexts that you’re quoting his experiences in the recent operations.

Sciutto then pressed Spencer as to why he was quick to dismiss a clear consensus the IDF had been overly aggressive resulting in thousands of needless civilian deaths.

Spencer concluded he did not agree with such a consensus and that he did not believe estimates about civilian deaths during IDF strikes – including those from the U.S. Department of Defense.

He added, “Have there been civilians to include women, children, that have died in Gaza? Absolutely. Is it 40,000? Absolutely not.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.