Are Congressional oversight bodies really doing their ‘utmost’? (Photo L’ennnui/ Flickr)

Claims by a powerful Senate oversight committee that it is doing its ‘utmost’ to verify claims of civilian casualties from covert US drone strikes have been undermined by the discovery that it has made no contact with any group conducting field studies into civilian deaths in Pakistan.

On February 7 the CIA’s director-designate John Brennan was questioned by members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In her opening remarks, chair Dianne Feinstein insisted that civilian deaths from US covert strikes ‘each year has typically been in the single digits’.

Feinstein also said that ‘for the past several years, this committee has done significant oversight of the government’s conduct of targeted strikes’ and had done its ‘utmost to confirm’ civilian casualty data provided by the executive branch.

However, the Bureau can find no indication that either the House or Senate intelligence committees have sought evidence from beyond the US intelligence community, when following up claims of civilian deaths.

While public estimates of civilian deaths vary, all monitoring groups report higher than ‘single digit’ fatalities for most years. The Bureau presently estimates that at least 411 civilians have been killed by the CIA in Pakistan since 2004, for example.

‘Never contacted’

Professor Sarah Knuckey, who co-led the recent field investigation by New York and Stanford universities into the Pakistan strikes, confirmed that her team has never been contacted by any US government official, or Congressional oversight committee member or aide.

‘US officials have stated that they have done their utmost to verify civilian casualty numbers, and that they investigate and take seriously reports of civilian harm. These public commitments are welcome,’ Knuckey told the Bureau.

‘But if the commitments are serious, why haven’t officials followed up with the organizations and journalists who investigated strikes and collected information relevant to determining any civilian harm?’

Those concerns were echoed by Sarah Holewinski, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict. Thirty months after it issued its ground-breaking report into civilian deaths, Holewinski said this week that ‘we have never been contacted by Administration officials about our research and analysis on the covert drone program.’

Why haven’t officials followed up with the organizations and journalists who investigated strikes and collected information relevant to determining any civilian harm?Professor Sarah Knuckey, New York University

‘I give him further details of some other strikes that killed civilians, and without looking at what I was giving him Hoagland insisted that he checked the figure that morning and it was still in single digits,’ said Akhbar.

Associated Press, which interviewed more than 80 civilian eyewitnesses in the tribal areas for a major report in early 2012, confirmed that no US officials had ever sought follow -up.

The Bureau’s managing editor Christopher Hird also noted that ‘We have always been happy to share and discuss our findings with others researching this subject, but in the two years of our work we have never heard from either of these committees, or their staff.”

Secure RoomBoth the House of Representatives and the Senate have committees tasked with overseeing the vast US intelligence community – including the CIA, which carries out the majority of covert drone strikes.

Most oversight is carried out in secret. However, some details have recently emerged of how the two committees seek to hold the CIA to account on the drone programme.

Senator Feinstein first revealed the process in a letter to the Los Angeles Times in May 2012.

She implied that monthly oversight had begun in January 2010, a year after Obama took office, noting that her committee ‘receive notification with key details shortly after every strike’. She added that her staff  ‘has held 28 monthly in-depth oversight meetings to review strike records and question every aspect of the program including legality, effectiveness, precision, foreign policy implications and the care taken to minimize noncombatant casualties.’

Most oversight is carried out in secret. However, some details have recently emerged of how the two committees seek to hold the CIA to account on the drone programme.

more details

According to a Los Angeles Times report on the process, oversight committee staffers gathered in a secure room at CIA headquarters ‘also sometimes examine telephone intercepts and after-the-fact evidence, such as the CIA’s assessment of who was hit.’

One senior staffer told the paper: ‘I don’t know that we’ve ever seen anything that we thought was inappropriate.’

‘Blind faith’

Sarah Holewinski of the Center for Civilians in Conflict is now urging the Congressional oversight committees to be far more pro-active in their approach – and far less dependent solely on the word of the CIA.

She noted that unlike in Afghanistan, investigations into reported civilian deaths in US covert drone operations ‘are limited to overhead surveillance, not collecting witness statements and digging in the dirt for evidence of what happened or who exactly was killed.’

And Holewinski pointed to the risk of reliance on the Agency’s own definitions of those it is killing which may not accord with international law. Noting the CIA’s use of so-called signature strikes against alleged militants, whose identity is unknown and who appear to fit certain patterns of behaviour, Holewinski told the Bureau: ‘There’s every reason to want to believe claims of such low civilian casualties caused by drone strikes.’

‘But given obstacles to knowing precisely who was killed on the ground and without real evidence to back up the claims, to believe officials’ claims would be an act of blind faith that isn’t fair to the civilians suffering losses.’

At the time of writing, Senator Feinstein’s office had not responded to requests for comment. 

Follow Chris Woods on Twitter.

Obama’s CIA choice. But Brennan civilian death claims raise issues. (White House/ Pete Souza)

Claims by the Central Intelligence Agency’s new director-designate that the US intelligence services received ‘no information’ about any civilians killed by US drones in the year prior to June 2011 do not appear to bear scrutiny.

John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to take over the CIA, had claimed in a major speech in summer 2011 that there had not been ‘a single collateral death’ in a covert US strike in the past year due to the precision of drones. He later qualified his statement, saying that at the time of his comments he had ‘no information’ to the contrary.

Related article: US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ are untrue

Yet just three months beforehand, a major US drone strike had killed 42 Pakistanis, most of them civilians. As well as being widely reported by the media at the time, Islamabad’s concerns regarding those deaths were also directly conveyed to the ‘highest levels of the Administration’ by Washington’s then-ambassador to Pakistan, it has been confirmed to the Bureau.

This confirmation suggests that senior US officials were aware of dozens of civilian deaths just weeks before Brennan’s claims to the contrary.

Jirga deaths

The CIA drone strike in Pakistan on March 17, which bombed the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan and killed an estimated 42 people, has always seemed a contradiction of Brennan’s official statement.

The attack was later justified by an anonymous US official as a so-called ‘signature strike’ where the identities of those killed was unknown. They insisted that ‘a large group of heavily armed men, some of whom were clearly connected to al Qaeda and all of whom acted in a manner consistent with AQ-linked militants, were killed.’

In fact the gathering was a jirga, or tribal meeting, called to resolve a local mining dispute. Dozens of tribal elders and local policemen died, along with a small number of Taliban.

Within hours of the attack Pakistan’s prime minister and army chief publicly condemned the mass killing of dozens of civilians. Pakistan’s president also later protested about the strike to a visiting delegation from the US House Armed Services Committee, led by Congressman Rob Wittman.

An official Pakistani government document issued at the time reports that Washington’s then-ambassador Cameron Munter was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad on March 18 for a dressing-down.

A strongly worded statement reported that ‘Ambassador Munter was categorically conveyed that such strikes were not only “unacceptable” but also constituted “a flagrant violation of humanitarian norms and law”.’

Munter also intended ‘to convey Pakistan’s message to the US Administration at the highest levels,’ the Foreign Ministry press release claimed.

While some challenge Pakistan’s portrayal of some aspects of the meeting, it is not disputed that the Ambassador did indeed convey Pakistan’s concerns to the highest levels in the US government.

‘Not a single collateral death’

Yet three months after the Datta Khel strike, John Brennan would insist that covert US drone strikes were so accurate that they were no longer killing civilians, and had not done so for the previous 12 months.

He told an audience on June 29 that ‘I can say that the types of operations… that the US has been involved in, in the counter-terrorism realm, that nearly for the past year there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.’

It is not disputed that the Ambassador did indeed convey Pakistan’s concerns to the highest levels in the US government.

The Datta Khel attack was not the only time that civilians had died in the period referred to by Brennan. Working with veteran Pakistani reporter Rahimullah Yusufzai and field researchers in the tribal areas, the Bureau identified and published details of 45 civilians known at the time to have been killed by CIA drones in ten strikes between August 2010 and June 2011, the date of Brennan’s speech. Many of those killed had died at Datta Khel.

The Bureau presented a summary of its findings to the White House and to John Brennan’s office in July 2011. Both declined to comment.

Nine months later, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News challenged Brennan on his original claims.

‘Do you stand by the statement you have made in the past that, as effective as they have been, [drones] have not killed a single civilian?’  the interviewer asked. ‘That seems hard to believe.’

Brennan was robust, insisting that ‘what I said was that over a period of time before my public remarks that we had no information about a single civilian, a noncombatant being killed.’

Military-aged malesA later report in the New York Times provided a possible explanation for Brennan’s robustness. The paper revealed that Washington ‘counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.’

Since all of the civilians killed at Datta Khel were adult males, officials may simply have discounted their deaths. There are no indications that the CIA has amended its records since.

Do you stand by the statement you have made in the past that, as effective as they have been, [drones] have not killed a single civilian?’  the interviewer asked. ‘That seems hard to believe.’

The Bureau has now raised its estimate of the number of civilians killed in the period Brennan claimed none had died to 76, including eight children and two women. The new figures are based in part on our own research and on studies by Associated Press and Stanford and New York universities.

John Brennan, 57, is Barack Obama’s first choice as the new director of the CIA. As the president’s chief counter-terrorism adviser he helped to bring Yemen’s Arab Spring to a reasonably peaceful conclusion. And he also played a key role in the killings of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaqi and a host of other senior militant leaders.

Brennan also spearheaded a massive expansion of US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The American Civil Liberties Union urged caution in appointing him as CIA chief. Calling on the Senate to investigate any recent involvement by John Brennan or the CIA in ‘torture, abuse, secret prisons, and extraordinary rendition,’ the ACLU’s Laura Murphy also urged an end to the CIA’s ‘targeted killing program.’

Mr Brennan’s office did not respond when asked to confirm whether he had been directly informed of the Pakistan government’s concerns over civilian deaths back in March 2011.

Follow Chrisjwoods on Twitter.

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.

Follow chrisjwoods on Twitter.

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.’

Follow @chrisjwoods on Twitter.

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.

Follow Chris Woods on Twitter.

When 26 members of the US Congress wrote to President Obama recently urging him to get a grip on his use of drones as ‘faceless ambassadors that cause civilian deaths,’ one man in particular was responsible.

Congressman for Ohio Dennis Kucinich has been a career politician for more than 40 years – but he’s no Washington insider. Described at times by friend and foe alike as ‘the most liberal man in America,’ Kuchinich maintains a principled stand against US militarism.

Kucinich has viewed America’s targeted killings programme against alleged terrorists with alarm for some years. Recently he has agitated for the United States to be open about its covert wars, and for Congress to assert its right to declare war – or not – in places like Pakistan and Yemen. And Kucinich, twice a Presidential primary contender, is also trying to introduce a Bill that would outlaw the assassination of American citizens by US agencies like the CIA.

On the day that the Bureau spoke with him, a UN expert in Geneva had just labeled a CIA drone tactic used in Pakistan as ‘a war crime’. We began by asking him about the implications:

Dennis Kucinich: Well I think it is only a matter of time before the international discussion on this makes it crystal clear that if the drone programs are not shut down, then what we are looking at is the potential of war of all against all, a pulverisation of national sovereignty and a rejection of the structure of international law. So, you know, there is the idea of war crimes becomes compelling only if nations respect the jurisdiction of a tribunal.

I certainly have called for the US to join the International Criminal Court. We have ventured into a world since 9/11 where international law is set aside and where the implements of war are becoming so ubiquitous that all the rules are being ignored and conflict zones are expanding. Where suspected terrorists – and we do not know what they are really suspected of doing, you know – they can be suspects now, and they can be executed. Or they can just be perceived to be a male of combat age and be executed.

Q: What do you hope to achieve with your recent letter to President Obama?

DK: Well, it has already achieved something. When you bring together dozens of members of Congress in a common statement about a US policy that lacks a legal basis, that doesn’t have transparency, then, I think, people start to take notice. Congress, unfortunately, has been slow to claim its responsibility under the US Constitution, ‘the power to declare war’. When the Constitution was written the war-power was bifurcated in this way. Under article 1 the Congress founders wanted to restrain what they called ‘the dog of war’ by putting it into the hands of a legislator whose constituents would be affected by it, and would therefore have to face the people at some point.

We have ventured into a world since 9/11 where international law is set aside.’

But what has happened is that in this post 9/11 world is that the declarations of war have basically vanished, replaced by an administration’s assertion of the power to declare a global war. And that has been buttressed, that was under the Bush administration, now under the Obama administration it is the derogation to the executive of the power to strike at any nation at any time for any reason. Expanding drone wars across Africa, across the Middle East, and I think ultimately risking blow-back.

Q: In Yemen recently there has been a very steep escalation, not just in drone strikes but apparently covert air strikes, naval bombardments, and possibly ground forces.

DK: Yes, it is a war, you know. We do not need to go through an Orwellian exercise of semantics or the twisting of meaning here. We understand that we are at war in Yemen. Now in order for Congress to be fully aware of this matter, I am planning to bring to the floor of the House a resolution which seizes upon the requirements of the War Powers Act, that the administration is going to either have to seek a declaration from Congress or will have to stop.

You are looking here at an executive power that is unleashed. Our system of justice, according to the Constitution, is highly structured. There are broad areas of our constitution that have to do with people being investigated, arrested, charged, having a trial, and then if they are convicted being properly sentenced and incarcerated.

What we have done here with the drone programme is to radically alter our system of justice. Because, remember, if the whole idea is that we are exporting American values, those drones represent American values. And now we are telling the world that American values are summary executions, no rights to an accused, no arrest process, no reading of charges, no trial by jury, no judge, only an executioner.

If you have only an executioner that is not justice, that is something else. Not only the United States but the world community should be properly appraised about these so-called targeted killings. And because the emphasis in on killing, this is murder. If someone shot a grocer and his defense was ‘it was a targeted killing’ he would be put on trial for his life. But we are told that these targeted killings are somehow to be considered apart from any legal system.

Q: There’s recently been some transparency, where the President and others have spoken publicly about the covert drone campaigns. But the Department of Justice position is that ‘we still can’t talk to you at all about it because it is secret.’ How can those apparently irreconcilable positions be held by the government? 

DK: Well, when you have assassination programmes that lack any attempt to establish legal justification, then you have journeyed into moral depravity. International law means nothing, laws of war mean nothing. I am not assigning that condition to any one individual, but I am saying that the programme itself bespeaks an approach which depraves moral law, the constitution, and international law. That sets us into an endless cycle of violence.

Now we are telling the world that American values are summary executions.

There are innocent people being killed, that can not be disputed. In one of the first strikes that they publicised in the Wazaristan area, there was a little town Damadola where I think about 14 people were killed, I think in a strike in January 2006, I am just reciting this from memory. I believe they struck because one of the persons appeared to be the height of one of the individuals they were looking for. The criteria keeps changing and it keeps getting looser and looser.

Now, according to that recent story I think in the New York Times, all males in Waziristan are now viewed as terrorists.

Related article: Analysis – Obama embraced redefinition of ‘civilian’ in drone wars

Q: All adult-aged males, yes.

DK: Yes, and so someday, I hope it is not going to be too far into the future, somebody is going to look back at this and go ‘oh my God, why was this permitted?’ The US government just goes ‘we spent more money on arms than any other country in the world just because we have the most powerful military.’ We cannot assume for ourselves the right to impose a war anywhere we well please, and yet we have. And there is little accountability, so what I am trying to bring about in the Congress is to force accountability and transparency. Transparency in terms of ‘how are you able, you know, what about this extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions? What is the legal authority for the government to conduct extrajudicial killings, where did this come from?’ Really, where did this come from? Says who?

Q: The administration is saying ‘we are being as transparent as we can within operational security.’ You don’t accept that?

DK: No. Absolutely not. I mean they went ahead and they have never made the case as to how this contributed to US security. As a matter of fact it could be, the argument could be made that it makes us less safe because instead of dealing with the one person that we are killing, we are going to be dealing with all their friends and relatives down the road. We are creating, every bomb that we drop, every missile that we launch, there are sure to be reprisals. And the reprisals, you know, there is no time-date set here, there is no time limit.

I mean, you cannot engage in this kind of conduct with impunity, it is not possible in this world. We have set upon a new frontier of a very rough technological justice which is divorced from moral law. And as such we are inviting a whirlwind of reaction. And for the life of me I can’t understand why these questions were not being weighed before we waded into these policies.

Q: In his April 30 speech on drones, Obama’s chief counter terrorism adviser John Brennan said that ‘If we want other nations to adhere to high and rigorous standards with their use then we must do so as well. We can not expect of others what we will not do ourselves.’

DK: I look at it from my standpoint, as an American, as a member of Congress, what would we do if China, or Russia, or Iran sent a drone over the US? How would we respond? We would see it as, we would see the presence of a drone over our air-space as an act of war, no question about it. And a firing of a drone would invite a full retaliatory response. There is just no question about in, anyone who knows the US know how we would respond to that. Why then does our administration believe that America has some kind of a peremptory position? Why are we immune from international law? Where did we get that special privilege?

Q: One justification put forward is that there are believed to be secret agreements, between the US and Yemen in particular but also in the past with Pakistan, which in some way makes this all right.

DK: Well let’s look at this from a number of different levels. The Pakistan government and the United States have a very famous double-game going and our two nations are constantly faking each other out. We have carried the double-game to an art form where we can’t tell what is real anymore. Except the bodies lying among the smoking embers of a drone strike, that is real.

When there is no transparency or accountability that is what happens. It is easy for a country to assert cooperation. It is much more difficult for a country to assert non-cooperation and then to cooperate. Because all of this is so murky we can only reach conclusions from what facts are on the ground. And those facts include a lot of dead civilians. So lets say that Yemen asked us to do this, does it follow that we accept the invitation? Nor does it follow that the administration pursues it without Congress and an appropriate declaration. The same is true with Pakistan.

Q: Pakistan has now overtly rescinded any possible agreement, and is openly saying ‘please stop bombing us, this is against international law.’ Yet the bombing is still carrying on. This seems to be a new development.

DK: Well it is a new development. And if a nation, which at one time asked for our help, resents our help, then any action that takes place effectively loses the protection of the request for cooperation. And then it becomes a clearly outlined act of aggression. And so if it is as Pakistan says it is, and if in fact Pakistan has made this request and asked us to stop and we continue this bombing, then we are at war with Pakistan. I have raised this question more than a year ago on a war powers resolution on a war over Pakistan. And this was when we were just starting to step up the attacks.

The Pakistan government and the United States have a very famous double-game going and our two nations are constantly faking each other out. We have carried the double-game to an art form where we can’t tell what is real anymore.’

So it goes back to some simple propositions here: the UN Charter was established to protect the sovereignty of every nation and to stop the scourge of war. The United States, as a participant in the UN, has a responsibility not to aggress. Every nation has a right to defend itself, but no nation has the right to aggress against another. We are clearly aggressing against Pakistan, and against Yemen, and against a whole range of countries. This can only lead to more war. With war, these wars, any drone now is an incendiary that spreads war more broadly and it incites more people to join the cause of those who protest the US policies and who seeks to commit violence.

Q: Your critics argue that the covert drone programme is the least worst option. If the drone strikes stopped tomorrow, how would the US be able to control al Qaeda and their allies?

DK: First of all, before drones were invented, the ability of Interpol and others to cooperate with intelligence agencies to actively seek after suspects was not limited. And it may be that the US is finding limitations for its newly claimed role of the sole policeman of the world. And I will promise you this, that the American people are getting tired of footing the bill. The fact that we can do it and have been able to avoid any international questions about it does not mean at some point the world community is going to focus back upon the US and raise questions about the decisions that our leaders have made.

I love this country, I feel that we have had a kind of psychic dismemberment from our foundational causes of nation. How did the nation, that was founded under such egalitarian principles, find itself running a killing bureaucracy, how did that happen? How did we make that journey? This is clearly a story of a nation that is losing its way in the world to a mixture of fear and hubris. This is what has brought me twice to run for president of the US, to challenge this, because it is really a preliminary to the destruction of our own nation from within. We cannot keep doing this, and there is no defense for this.

Q: Medea Benjamin of Code Pink recently told the Bureau that engaging US people with the covert war and targeted killings is difficult, because there is a Democrat in the White House.

DK: It is true, but it is Bush’s policies, run by another administration. There is this riddle of ‘why can a Democrat get away with what a Republican could never get away with?’ But as far as I am concerned that is not germane to my work, there is a principle here. If we fail to hold any executive or any administration accountable, particularly given the broad power a US executive has these days, then we are – and we are talking about the use of military force here which has a potential of killing people – then we are jeopardizing some of our most cherished democratic principles.

Killings become too easy, without a justice system to guide it. It is vigilantism conducted by robots. This is a venture into a realm that would have perhaps been conjured by the likes of Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe, but certainly not by Washington or Jefferson.

Related article: The uphill fight against Obama’s drones – Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin

Q:  When there are drone strikes in Pakistan with credible reports of civilian deaths, we can’t find any evidence of these deaths being reported by major US media. Does that concern you?

DK: This is consistent with the Iraq war. It’s not bad form to kill civilians, it’s only bad form to talk about it. That’s the problem. Let me say that there has been a tradition of American journalists in modern times to serve as the spear carriers for the government. They may look like pens but these are the spears of supernumeraries who have reporters’ cards. It’s what happens when you have fewer and fewer newspapers, and newspapers that are tied to large corporate interests. And a lack of enough institutions in the major media who are willing to serve as an effective counter-balance.

If Pakistan has asked us to stop and we continue this bombing, then we are at war with Pakistan.’

Look at the New York Times. It bought in wholesale into the war in Iraq, and came back to apologise. But how do you apologise for all of the dead bodies and the dead soldiers? We feel the dead soldiers, but we should also feel the dead civilians… There is a disturbing tendency to ignore civilian casualties, in any conflicts that we’re involved in whether they’re declared or undeclared. The only time civilian casualties are used is to articulate a cause for further US involvement in a conflict such as in Syria. There’s talk about civilian casualties there, it’s a very regretful situation in Syria. And the US will almost daily report on those civilian casualties because there’s a cry for intervention. But where there’s no interest in intervention, where there’s a desire simply to dominate either militarily, politically, strategically, then you’ll see the whole issue of civilian casualties buried.

Why do they do that? I think the people of the United States would be horrified if they actually understood how many innocent people are being swept up in the maw of these wars. So people are just permitted to sleep. And it’s going to be very disturbing for the American people when they awake from the slumber to look out upon a world where there’s carnage everywhere that’s created by our nation without any legal process, without any constitutional basis and without any articulated justification.

This is a lightly edited version of an interview conducted with Congressman Kucinich on June 21 2012

Follow @RepKucinich and @chrisjwoods on Twitter