The Daily Beast writes this week that Pres. Obama is expectedto sign off on an order that will end the Central IntelligenceAgency’s ability to use unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, andwill instead relinquish the arsenal of UAVs to the Pentagon.“The move could potentially toughen the criteria for dronestrikes, strengthen the program’s accountability and increasetransparency,” Daily Beast reporter Daniel Klaidman writes.Currently, both the US military and the CIA manage separate butsimilar drone programs in order to single-in on targets and launchmissile strikes, a maneuver that has become a hallmark of America’swars during the first term of Pres. Obama’s presidency. At the sametime, though, a massive backlash from foreign citizens, USpoliticians and the American public alike have largely objected tothe use of the aircraft, particularly in the wake of leakedwhitepapers that explain the president’s power to use armed dronesto execute American citizens abroad without due process.Both Pres. Obama and the Department of Justice have since saidthat no American citizen can be subjected to a government-approvedextrajudicial execution, but members of Congress continue to demanddetails from the White House. Now if the drone program isofficially handed over to the Department of Defense, the shroud ofsecrecy that typically cloaks CIA operations could be removed fromone of its many elusive endeavors as the proverbial plug ispulled.The CIA program, writes Klaidman, is one that is officiallyconsidered to be a “covert” mission, “which is to say itis not only highly classified, it’s deniable under the law,” hesays. “That means the CIA, in theory, can lie about theexistence of the program or about particular operations.” Onthe other hand, however, the military’s targeted kill program isnot covert but clandestine, “which means it is secret but notdeniable,” he writes.Should the president re-write the rulebook for the targeted killprogram, the CIA will likely continue to collect and analyzeforeign intelligence but will be prohibited from personallyoverseeing the execution of targets using the remote-controlledkilling machines. As Wired’s Spencer Ackerman notes, however, the maneuver might only mean newpolicies on paper.“If the Obama administration decides to give the US militarycontrol of the CIA’s drone effort, the institutional changes to thecontroversial global drone strikes will be minor,” Ackermanwrites on Wednesday. “That’s because the important leveragepoints over the drones — and the global, targeted-killing programthey support — are political, not institutional.”While Klaidman suggests the likely change means the White Housewants to diminish the public’s damning perception that thepresident “is running a secretive and legally dubious killingmachine,” Ackerman says a change of command won’t meancivilians overseas will be safe from the all-too long arm ofAmerica’s military might. While the CIA’s secret drone program inlocales such as Pakistan and Yemen might land on the choppingblock, the Defense Department drones that regularly search for andstrike targets in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia will still remainintact.And while the Daily Beast predicts that the retirement of a CIAdrone program could mean more transparency as the Pentagon becomesthe only powerful US entity to launch such strikes, Ackerman writesthat that argument is still up in the air.“Typically, though not always, the military’s lethalactivities occur under a congressional grant of authority in thecontext of an armed conflict,” Klaidman says. When it comes toCIA activities, however, details about when, why or how a target issought out can be kept under lock and key. Ackerman counters,“There’s an argument that giving the military control over thedrones will lead to greater transparency around them: Maybe, butnot necessarily.”“The military is more likely than the CIA to openly testifyabout future drone operations, allow knowledgeable congressionalstaff into closed-door operational briefings and allow members ofCongress to take tours of drone airbases,” he admits, “butthat’s not to say that there will necessarily be more transparencyof the military’s drone programs. Much depends on congressionalprerogative, rather than institutional requirements.”Klaidman acknowledges, “There’s nothing in the law that saysthe military has to brief congressional committees about its lethalactivities.”“Moving lethal drone operations exclusively to DOD mightbring benefits. But DOD’s lethal operations are no less secretivethan the CIA’s, and congressional oversight of DOD ops issignificantly weaker” compared with congressional oversightthat goes into CIA decisions, Harvard law professor and formerJustice Department official Jack Goldsmith tells The DailyBeast.Klaidman cites three anonymous US officials as his sources, andsays the transition could take anywhere from one to four years, butwould occur before Pres. Obama ends his second term ascommander-in-chief and exits the White House.“Barack Obama has got to be concerned about his legacy,”one former adviser tells Klaidman. “He doesn’t want drones tobecome his Guantánamo.”Last month, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) credited US drones with killing roughly 4,700foreigners. “Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that,but we’re at war, and we’ve taken out some very senior members ofal-Qaeda,” he said. Just how effective those strikes are isstill up for question, though. Researchers at Stanford Universityand New York University published a report last year that foundthat only 2 percent of drone casualties are top militant leaders,and the Pakistani Interior Minister has said that around 80 percentof drone deaths in his country were suffered by civilians. … Read More
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