Predator drones increasingly a museum piece thanks to more lethal models (Justinpickard/ Flickr)

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) usually gets all the credit for the first US drone targeted killing beyond the conventional battlefield.

But it was the military which gave the final go-ahead to kill on November 3 2002.

Lt General Michael DeLong was at Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Florida when news came in that the CIA had found its target. The deputy commander made his way down to the UAV Room, showing live video feeds from a CIA Predator high above Marib province in Yemen.

The armed drone was tracking an SUV on the move. The six terrorist suspects inside were unaware that a decision had already been made to kill them.

Interviewed by PBS, DeLong later recalled speaking by phone with CIA Director George Tenet as he watched the video wall:

‘Tenet goes “You going to make the call?” And I said, “I’ll make the call.”  He says, “This SUV over here is the one that has Ali in it.”  I said, “OK, fine.” You know, “Shoot him.” They lined it up and shot it.’

Eight thousand miles away and moments later, six alleged terrorists were dead. Among them was a US citizen.

‘Orchestrator’ killedThe media carried detailed accounts of the ‘secret’ attack within days. Yemen’s government, which had co-operated on the strike, also released the names of the six men killed, including that of US citizen Kemal Darwish.

Concerns he had been deliberately targeted were dismissed, as it was reported the intended CIA target was Qa’id Salim Sinan al-Harithi, al Qaeda’s ‘orchestrator’ of the lethal attack on the USS Cole.

As the New York Times noted at the time, ‘Mr. Harethi was not on the FBI’s list of the 22-most-wanted terrorist fugitives in the world,’ and added that ‘although investigators wanted to question Mr. Harethi about the Cole bombing, the CIA did not consult law enforcement officials before the Yemeni operation.’

A secret US cable, dated a fortnight prior to the strike, also shows that Yemen’s government had already incarcerated more than a dozen men wanted in connection with the Cole bombing. At least one of them, Fahd al Quso, was killed in a subsequent US drone strike.

Although investigators wanted to question Mr. Harethi about the Cole bombing, the CIA did not consult law enforcement officials before the Yemeni operation’

New York Times, November 2002

six weeks beforehand

massive worldwide manhunt

Questions remain about how much the CIA and Centcom actually knew about the presence of a US citizen that day.

When assistant US defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz openly discussed the strike with CNN on November 5, he noted only that a ‘successful tactical operation [has] gotten rid of somebody dangerous.’ It would be many years before senior officials would again openly acknowledge the covert drones project.

No inevitabilityThe way had been cleared for the November 2002 killings months earlier, when President Bush lifted a 25-year ban on US assassinations just after 9/11.

He later wrote that ‘George [Tenet] proposed that I grant broader authority for covert actions, including permission for the CIA to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives without asking for my sign-off each time. I decided to grant the request.’

Since then, under both Bush and Obama, the US has carried out targeted killings (or extrajudicial executions according to UN experts) using  conventional aircraft and helicopter strikes; cruise missiles; and even naval bombardments.

Yet the drone remains the US’s preferred method of killing. The Bureau has identified a minimum of 2,800 (and as many as 4,100) killed in covert US drone strikes over the past ten years. What began as an occasional tactic has, over time, morphed into an industrialised killing process.

Every confirmed US drone strike in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia recorded 2002-2012.

There was no inevitability to this when the strikes began. Time magazine opined in 2002 that covert drone attacks were ‘unlikely to become a norm.’ And in the early years of the programme this was true. The next covert drone strike took place in Pakistan in June 2004, followed by a further strike 11 months later.

Yet slowly, surely, the United States has come to depend on its drone killing programme. By Obama’s presidency drone use against alleged militants was sometimes daily. Six times more covert strikes have hit Pakistan under Barack Obama than under George W Bush. And as the Bureau’s work shows, when known strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan are added together, they reveal a growing dependence upon covert drone killings.

Recent reports show that the US is now formalising the drone killing project. Some insiders talk of a decade or more of killing to come, with Mitt Romney noting that he would continue the policy if elected.

In Washington at least, a decade of targeted killings of alleged terror suspects appears to have normalised the process.

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Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama at the White House. (Photo: UK Government)

David Cameron has called for those carrying out covert drone strikes ‘to act in accordance with international law’ and to take ‘all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.’

However the British prime minister has carefully avoided any direct criticism of the US, Britain’s closest military ally.

Cameron’s comments feature in a letter to David Mepham, UK director of Human Rights Watch, dated August 29 and just released.

Mepham had previously urged Cameron to explain ‘your government’s position on the Obama administration’s policy and practice of targeted killings.’ He asked the prime minister:

Do you agree that their approach is legal and appropriate? … If you disagree with US administration policy on targeted killings, have you or will you be raising your concerns with President Obama and others in the administration?

Perhaps most sensitively, Mepham had called on Cameron to ‘clarify your government’s policy on the sharing of intelligence with the US on terrorism suspects, which might then be used to carry out drone attacks?’

High Court case

That last question is a potential tinderbox for the British government. An ongoing High Court case alleges that UK security services have provided intelligence to the United States which has been used in targeted killings in Pakistan and elsewhere.  Such killings – by drone or otherwise – are understood to be illegal under British and European law.

Earlier this week the UK’s former Director of Public Prosecutions (Lord) Ken MacDonald told the London Times that ‘the evidence is pretty compelling that we are providing that kind of information to the Americans.’

The Times also reported claims that UK intelligence is often pooled with that of other countries and held on a common database, possibly allowing the UK government to claim that it had no control over how such information was used.

After the deaths of a number of its own citizens at the hands of the CIA, Germany’s intelligence services halted the sharing of information with US spy agencies if that data might be used in a drone strike. The UK operates no such policy.

Chris Cole, a critic of drone militarization who runs the website Drone Wars UK, told the Bureau: ‘The British government’s argument appears to be that it is not responsible for what is done with its intelligence once shared with the US. That’s like handing bullets to an armed robber whose gun is empty, but denying you’re responsible for what happens.’

In his letter David Cameron refused to say whether US and UK intelligence services have co-operated in covert drone killings, saying only that ‘as I am sure you will understand our long-standing position is that we do not comment on intelligence matters.’

‘All feasible precautions’

The prime minister also refused to be drawn into criticising the US, Britain’s closest military and political ally. Instead Cameron noted that ‘the UK government’s position is that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against terrorist targets is a matter for the States involved.’

The prime minister did note, however, that the British government ‘expect all concerned to act in accordance with international law including taking all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties when conducting military operations.’

Research by the Bureau has consistently shown that US claims of ‘zero civilian casualties’ in Pakistan are untrue. Although reported deaths of women and children have declined sharply since August 2010, any civilian males killed by the CIA in the tribal areas are considered to be terrorists, according to a New York Times investigation.

Bureau monitoring of US civilian casualty estimates supports this claim, indicating that no military aged males (aged 18-65) are being reclassified as civilian by the CIA, even when their non-combatant status is posthumously revealed.

Tom Watson MP told the Bureau that it was ‘simply not acceptable’ that Cameron had failed to clarify the UK’s position on targeted killing by drone strike, as Human Rights Watch had called for.

The senior Labour backbencher added that ‘considering the UK’s domestic and international human rights commitments, one would have expected the government to confirm the illegality of the use of such methods and approaches outside the conventional battlefield.’

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President Obama takes a phone call aboard Air Force One, July 2012 (Photo Official White House/ Pete Souza)

In his most comprehensive public comments yet on the US covert drone war, President Barack Obama has laid out the five rules he says the United States uses to target and kill alleged terrorists – including US citizens.

The president has also warned of the need to avoid a ‘slippery slope’ when fighting terrorism, ‘in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means.’

Obama’s comments were made in an on-camera interview with CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin. Only once before has the president publicly discussed the US covert drone policy, when he spoke briefly about strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Now Obama says there are five rules that need to be followed in covert US drone attacks. In his own words:

1   ‘It has to be a target that is authorised by our laws.’

2   ‘It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative.’

3   ‘It has to be a situation in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.’

4   ‘We’ve got to make sure that in whatever operations we conduct, we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties.’

5   ‘That while there is a legal justification for us to try and stop [American citizens] from carrying out plots… they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process.’

‘Misreporting’

Obama twice referred to what he claims has been ‘misreporting’ by the media of his drones policy.

Apparently responding to recent allegations that his administration prefers to kill rather than capture suspects, the president said that ‘our preference has always been to capture when we can because we can gather intelligence’ but that it’s sometimes ‘very difficult to capture them.’

CNN’s Yellin did not bring up the issue of civilian casualties – despite CNN itself reporting multiple civilian deaths in a suspected Yemen drone strike just hours earlier. However Obama insisted that ‘we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties, and in fact there are a whole bunch of situations where we will not engage in operations if we think there’s going to be civilian casualties involved.’

Obama also took on the contentious targeted killing of US citizens – the subject of a number of high profile legal cases. Insisting that there was ‘legal justification’ for such killings, the president conceded that ‘as an American citizen, they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process.’

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is presently trying to block publication of administration legal opinions which allegedly provided the justification for the killing of US citizen Anwar al Awlaki and others.

In a recent court submission the DoJ insisted that Obama’s January comments on the covert drone war could not be taken as an admission that it was taking place: ‘Plaintiffs speculate that the president must have been speaking about CIA involvement in lethal operations…. This is insufficient to support a claim of official disclosure.’

With Obama now publicly laying out the ground rules for the covert drone war, the DoJ’s position appears further damaged.

‘Slippery slope’

The president also discussed in some detail his moral concerns regarding the campaign, admitting that he ‘struggle[s] with issues of war and peace and fighting terrorism.’

Our preference has always been to capture when we can because we can gather intelligence.’

US President Barack Obama

He said that he and his national security team needed to ‘continually ask questions about “Are we doing the right thing? Are we abiding by the rule of law? Are we abiding by due process?”‘

If that failed to happen, the president warned, there was the risk of a ‘slippery slope… in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means.’

The continuing deaths of civilians – and CIA tactics such as the deliberate targeting of rescuers – have led some to argue that the US is already bending or even breaking those rules.

Full transcript of President Obama’s comments to CNN

Jessica Yellin: On April 30 your homeland security adviser John Brennan acknowledged for the first time that the US uses armed drones to attack terrorists. My question to you is, do you personally decide who is targeted and what are your criteria if you do for the use of lethal force?

Obama: I’ve got to be careful here. There are classified issues, and a lot of what you read in the press that purports to be accurate isn’t always accurate. What is absolutely true is that my first job, my most sacred duty as president and commander in chief, is to keep the American people safe. And what that means is we brought a whole bunch of tools to bear to go after al Qaeda and those who would attack Americans.

Drones are one tool that we use, and our criteria for using them is very tight and very strict. It has to be a target that is authorised by our laws; that has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative.

It has to be a situation in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States. And this is an example of where I think there has been some misreporting. Our preference has always been to capture when we can because we can gather intelligence. But a lot of terrorist networks that target the United States, the most dangerous ones operate in very remote regions and it’s very difficult to capture them.

And we’ve got to make sure that in whatever operations we conduct, we are very careful about avoiding civilian casualties, and in fact there are a whole bunch of situations where we will not engage in operations if we think there’s going to be civilian casualties involved.

So we have an extensive process with a lot of checks, a lot of eyes looking at it. Obviously as president I’m ultimately responsible for decisions that are made by the administration. But I think what the American people need to know is the seriousness with which we take both the responsibility to keep them safe, but also the seriousness with which we take the need for us to abide by our traditions of rule of law and due process.

Yellin: Sir, do you personally approve the targets?

Obama: You know, I can’t get too deeply into how these things work, but as I said as commander in chief ultimately I’m responsible for the process that we’ve set up to make sure that folks who are out to kill Americans, that we are able to disable them before they carry out their plans.

Yellin: Are the standards different when the target is an American?

Obama: I think there’s no doubt that when an American has made the decision to affiliate himself with al Qaeda and target fellow Americans, that there is a legal justification for us to try and stop them from carrying out plots. What is also true though is that as an American citizen, they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process.

Yellin: Finally on this topic even Brennan said that some governments struggle with this. Do you struggle with this policy?

Obama: Absolutely. Look, I think that – A president who doesn’t struggle with issues of war and peace and fighting terrorism, and the difficulties of dealing with an opponent who has no rules, that’s something that you have to struggle with. Because if you don’t it’s very easy to slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means. And that’s not been our tradition, that’s not who we are as a country.

Our most powerful tool over the long term to reduce the terrorist threat is to live up to our values and to be able to shape public opinion not just here but around the world, that senseless violence is not a way to resolve political differences.

And so it’s very important for the president and the entire culture of our national security team to continually ask questions about ‘Are we doing the right thing? Are we abiding by the rule of law? Are we abiding by due process?’ And then set up structures and institutional checks so that you avoid any kind of slippery slope into a place where we’re not being true to who we are.

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