This is what the WSJ article says:
Apparently, when fired at the copter, the NATO forces went back and communicated with the Pakistani command to ascertain the presence of the troops. Per their claims, after receiving a response in the negative, they took the posts to be those of the Taliban, and went ahead with the attack with full force.
And here's the flame:
The only line that may come out now will be... "What we've got here... is failure to communicate".
So, you guys are good with what the unnamed official sources have to tell, but not OK with the official version of ISPR. What an irony.
here, read this passage carefully from the first post of this thread:
"
By 1 a.m. all channels of communications with the other side were activated and the helicopters were pulled back. But as Pakistani troops moved from one post to the other to assess the damage and aid the injured, the helicopters reappeared and pinned them down. Some 26 artillery airbursts were fired by the Pakistani side and the engagement lasted until 0215.
Answering a question, he said the civil authorities including the president, the prime minister and the foreign and defence ministers were informed in the “morning” about the incident which began around midnight and lasted for two hours.
The reason for the implied delay in informing the civil authorities, he said, was because a complete picture had not emerged until daybreak.
It was clear from General Nadeem’s briefing that there was misleading information being provided to the Pakistan military from the start. Just before the attack, a Pakistani officer at the regional tactical center was informed by an American sergeant that their special forces had received indirect fire from Gora Pai, located some 15 kilometres away from Volcano post. And after 7 minutes, a woman officer informed him that the fire had, in fact, come from Volcano, which had been hit in retaliation."
Read the bold parts and especially the red highlighted part, what ISPR said does kind of agrees with what this unnamed official said, that pakistanis were told about this thing before they gave the clear signal, but what the Americans told was 15Km away from where the post was. So may be this is what WSJ is talking about, they tell the Pakistanis who watch the map and see that we have no post nearby since Golra Pai is 15KM away from this very post and give the go ahead, but then the US changes their coordinates and start firing at the post. I wonder how in 7 minutes the coordinates changed 15Km from where the initial report of attack reported by the special forces.
I think the ISPR version is very much the real one since it is corroborating what the WSJ is saying, but NATO later changed the coordinates and fired deliberately on the post. May be WSJ is telling the half truth to hide their deliberate action. may be it was a deliberate planned mission, first ask the Pakistanis about a place which has no troops, and once get approval from them, attack the post and then blame it on the Pakistani coordinators at that centre.
Anyway, you guys keep believing the WSJ kind of unnamed officials, we will stick with the official Pakistani version. PA did thorough investigation and everything is simple, so should have been for the NATO officials since it not a difficult task to get the gun camera crew and see what the pilots were seeing, they get all their communication recorded, not hard to sit and listen to it in a few hours time and get a picture of what really happened. Simple process, since NATO is asking for few weeks to do the investigation, they will definitely hide the facts and the truth.