President Barack Obama has allegedly decided to hand over part of the CIA’s drone program to the Pentagon. The administration plans to gradually shift responsibility in stages, thereby providing greater congressional oversight on the use of drones.
News of the president’s alleged plans comes from four US
government sources who anonymously spoke to Reuters about the
impending shift of duty. The president plans to make a speech at
the National Defense University on Thursday, but it is
unknown whether or not he intends to bring up plans regarding CIA’s
counterterrorism drone program.
According to the officials, the president has already made up
his mind about allowing the armed forces to conduct future drone
operations, but he has not yet publicized these plans. By giving
the Pentagon greater responsibility in stages, the president hopes
that the military will eventually control drone operations in
Pakistan.
The shift would allow the CIA to return to its traditional
spying operations and intelligence analysis, rather than using its
resource to engage in paramilitary activities.
But for now, the CIA will continue to control drone operations
in Pakistan, where the US military is not engaged and where locals
remain angry about the 355 drone strikes that have occurred on
their land, according to the New America Foundation.
The Pentagon will, however, take over the drone program in
Yemen, where the US military is already working in cooperation with
local forces to combat terrorism, two of the four sources told
Reuters.
The Obama administration has allegedly been discussing the shift
of responsibility for months. Officials say that the move would
lead to greater transparency and congressional oversight of the
drone program, which has been heavily scrutinized in the past.
To date, the New America Foundation estimates that there have
been 355 drone strikes in Pakistan and 66 in Yemen. Sen. Lindsey
Graham in February estimated that 4,700 people have been killed in
America’s drone war, many of which were innocent civilians. The
Bureau of Investigative Journalism in February estimated that the
number killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia is
between 3,072 and 4,756.
The administration claims that CIA drone strikes are only
authorized against confirmed terrorist threats, but many believe
there is more to the covert operations than they will ever
know.
“The United States has gone far beyond what the US public —
and perhaps even Congress — understands the government has been
doing and claiming they have a legal right to so,” Notre Dame
Law School professor told McClatchy, claiming that CIA drone
operations in Pakistan violate international law.
If the Pentagon takes over drone operations, congressional
lawmakers would have more of an input on the use of these unmanned
aerial vehicles.
Last month, three senior US officials told the Daily Beast that
the move would “toughen the criteria for drone strikes,
strengthen the program’s accountability, and increase
transparency.”
Jeh Jonson, a former top lawyer for the Pentagon, said in a
speech at Fordham University that “the parameters of
congressionally authorized armed conflict are transparent to the
public, from the words of the congressional authorization itself,
and the executive branch’s interpretation of that authorization…
lethal force outside the parameters of congressionally authorized
armed conflict by the military looks to the public to lack any
boundaries, and lends itself to the suspicion that it is an
expedient substitute for criminal justice.”
It is unclear when the president will announce his alleged plans
to shift the drone program, but after last week’s scandals
regarding government overreach — including the IRS targeting of
conservative organizations and the DOJ investigating Associated
Press journalists — Obama may be feeling the pressure to provide
greater transparency.
This article originally appeared on : RT