Gen. Barry McCaffrey told NBC's Brian Williams he was "astonished" at State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki's inability to "say anything sensible at all" about the Malaysian commercial plane which crashed in Ukraine near the Russian border Thursday.
Despite reports that U.S. citizens were on board the plane, Psaki had no further information or confirmation on the events to give reporters during her press briefing Thursday afternoon.
"One would think the U.S. embassy in the Netherlands almost immediately, within an hour or so, would know whether U.S. passengers were aboard," McCaffrey said.
"Obviously this was a mistake shootdown by somebody," McCaffrey said of the plane. "Nobody in his right mind should be flying commercial aircraft in that part of the world."