On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Alicia Lopez, whose son, Corporal Hunter Lopez, was killed in the 2021 Kabul airport attack, reacted to a Pentagon statement on the ability to prevent the Kabul attack by stating that “if their statement that they released today is anything like the DOD report that we received at our homes, it’s short of accurate information” and she doesn’t believe them.
After reading parts of the statement, host Jake Tapper asked, “I’m wondering what you think about that, and if you heard anything new in what the Pentagon sent us today?”
Lopez responded, “This is the first I hear that the Pentagon even responded, but –.”
Tapper cut in to note that they just got the statement minutes prior, and “they have never this directly addressed these two questions.”
Lopez responded, “Well, if their statement that they released today is anything like the DOD report that we received at our homes, it’s short of accurate information. They failed to speak with people that were there, important people like Sgt. Tyler Vargas, who had the bomber in his sights, and they did not speak with him. There were several Marines that were injured that were not spoken to. So, their statements that they release [are]…incomplete and not correct, and it’s been two years, and so, I don’t really believe them.”
She added, “We have requested true accountability and validation of the stories that the Marines that were injured and that were there have told us, we’ve requested numerous times to have my son’s property returned to us, that, again, has been ignored. … Just accurate statements of where my child was at the time of the bombing, where he took his last breath, all that, we have no information on any of that.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
