You might have heard about the “kill list.” You’ve certainly heard
about drones. But the details of the U.S. campaign against militants in
Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — a centerpiece of the Obama
administration’s national security approach – remain shrouded in
secrecy. Here’s our guide to what we know—and what we don’t know.
Credit: Wikipedia
At various points the CIA’s use of signature strikes in Pakistan in particular have
caused tensions with the White House and State Department. One official
told the New York Times about a joke that for the CIA, “three guys doing jumping jacks,” was a terrorist training camp.
In Yemen and Somalia, there is debate about whether the militants
targeted by the U.S. are in fact plotting against the U.S. or instead
fighting against their own country. Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council
on Foreign Relations who has been critical of the drone program,
toldProPublica
that the U.S. is essentially running “a counterinsurgency air force”
for allied countries. At times, strikes have relied on local
intelligence that later proves faulty. The Los Angeles Times
recently examined the case of a Yemeni man killed by a U.S. drone and the complex web of allegiances and politics surrounding his death.
How many people have been killed in strikes?
The precise number isn’t known, but
some estimates peg the total
around 3,000.
A number of groups are tracking strikes and estimating casualties:
· The Long War Journal covers
Pakistan and
Yemen.
· The New America Foundation covers
Pakistan.
· The London Bureau of Investigative Journalism covers
Yemen,
Somalia, and
Pakistan, as well as
statisticsfrom on drone strikes carried out in Afghanistan.
How many of those killed are have been civilians?
It’s impossible to know.
There has been considerable
back-and-
forth about the tally of civilian casualties. For instance, the New America Foundation
estimates between 261 and 305 civilians have been killed in Pakistan; The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
gives a range of 475 – 891.
All of the counts are much higher than the very low numbers of deaths the administration claims. (We’ve
detailed inconsistencies even within those low estimates.) Some analyses show that civilian deaths have
dropped proportionally in recent years.
The estimates are largely compiled by interpreting news reports
relying on anonymous officials or accounts from local media, whose
credibility may vary. (For example, the Washington Post
reported last month that the Yemeni government often tries to conceal the U.S.’ role in airstrikes that kill civilians.)
The controversy has been compounded by the fact that the U.S.
reportedly counts any military-age male killed in a drone strike as a militant. An administration official
told ProPublica,
“If a group of fighting age males are in a home where we know they are
constructing explosives or plotting an attack, it’s assumed that all of
them are in on that effort.” It’s not clear what if any investigation
occurs after the fact.
Columbia Law School conducted
an in-depth analysis of
what we know about the U.S.’s efforts to mitigate and calculate
civilian casualties. It concluded that the drone war’s covert nature
hampered accountability measures taken in traditional military actions.
Another report from Stanford and NYU documented “anxiety and psychological trauma” among Pakistani villagers.
This fall, the U.N.
announced an investigation into the civilian impact – in particular, allegations of “
double-tap” strikes, in which a second strike targets rescuers.
Why just kill? What about capture?
Administration officials
have said in speeches that militants are targeted for killing
when they pose an imminent threat to the U.S. and capture isn’t feasible. But killing appears to be is far more common than capture, and accounts of strikes
don’t generally shed light on “imminent” or “feasible.”
Cases involving
secret, overseas captures under Obama show the political and diplomatic quandaries in deciding how and where a suspect could be picked up.
This fall, the Washington Post
described something
called the “disposition matrix” – a process that has contingency plans
for what to do with terrorists depending where they are. The Atlantic
mapped out how
that decision-making might happen in the case of a U.S. citizen, based
on known examples. But of course, the details of the disposition matrix,
like the “kill lists” it reportedly supplants, aren’t known.
What’s the legal rationale for all this?
Obama administration officials have given a
series of speeches broadly outlining the legal underpinning for strikes, but they never talk about specific cases. In fact, they
don’t officially acknowledge the drone war at all.
The White House argues that Congress’ 2001
Authorization for Use of Military Force as
well as international law on nations’ right to self-defense provides
sound legal basis for targeting individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda or
“associated forces,” even outside Afghanistan.
That can include U.S. citizens.
“Due process,” said Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech last March, “takes into account the realities of combat.”
What form that “due process” takes hasn’t been detailed. And, as
we’ve reported, the government frequently clams up when it comes to specific questions – like
civilian casualties, or the reasons specific individuals were killed.
Just last week, a federal judge
ruled that the government did not have to release
a secret legal memomaking
the case for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen. The judge
also ruled the government did not have to respond to
other requests seeking
more information about targeted killing in general. (In making the
ruling, the judge acknowledged a “Catch-22,” saying that the government
claimed “as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face
incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons
for their conclusion a secret.”)
The U.S. has also
sought to dismiss a lawsuit brought by
family members over Awlaki’s death and that of his 16-year-old son – also a U.S. citizen — who was killed in a drone strike.
When does the drone war end?
The administration has
reportedly discussed scaling back the drone war, but
by other accounts, it is formalizing the targeted killing program for the long haul. The U.S.
estimates there Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a “few thousand” members; but officials
have also said the U.S. cannot “capture of kill every last terrorist who claims an affiliation with al Qaeda.”
The State Department’s legal counsel Harold Koh
gave a speech last month entitled, “The Conflict Against Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: How Will It End?” He didn’t give a date.
John Brennan
has reportedly said the
CIA should return to its focus on intelligence-gathering. But Brennan’s
key role in running the drone war from the White House
has led to debate about how much he would actually curtail the agency’s involvement if he is confirmed as CIA chief.
What about backlash abroad?
There appears to be plenty of it. Drone strikes are
deeply unpopular in the countries where they occur, sparking
frequent protests. Despite that, Brennan
said last August that the U.S. saw,“little evidence that these actions are generating widespread anti-American sentiment or recruits.”
General Stanley McChrystal, who led the military in Afghanistan, recently contradicted that,
saying,
“The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes … is much
greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a
visceral level, even by people who’ve never seen one or seen the effects
of one.” The New York Times recently reported that Pakistani militants
have
carried out a campaign of brutal reprisals against locals, accusing them of spying for the U.S.
As for international governments: Top U.S. allies have
mostly kept silent. A 2010 U.N. report
raised concerns about the precedent of a covert, boundary-less war. The President of Yemen, Abdu Hadi,
supports the U.S. campaign, while Pakistan maintains an uneasy combination of
public protest and
apparent acquiescence.
Drone War Jargon
AUMF The Authorization for Use of Military Force, an
act of Congresspassed
days after the 9/11 attacks, giving the president authority to take
“all necessary and appropriate force” against anyone involved in the
attack or harboring those who were. Both Bush and Obama have claimed
broad authorities to detain and kill terror suspects based on the AUMF.
AQAP Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the Yemen-based al Qaeda affiliate
tied to the
attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing in 2009. Over the past year,
the U.S. has ramped up strikes against AQAP, targeting leaders as well
as unspecified militants.
DISPOSITION MATRIX A system for tracking terror targets and
assessing when – and where – they could be killed or captured. The
Washington Post
reported this fall that the Disposition Matrix is an attempt to codify for the long haul the administration’s “kill lists.”
GLOMAR A response rejecting a request for information on a
classified program asserting that the information’s mere existence can
neither be confirmed nor denied. The name
comes from 1968, when the CIA told journalists it could neither “confirm nor deny” the existence of a ship called the Glomar Explorer. The CIA
has responded to information requests about its drone program with Glomar responses.
JSOC Joint Special Operations Command is a secretive, elite
segment of the military. JSOC squads carried out the Bin Laden raid and
run the military’s drone programs in Yemen and Somalia and also conduct
intelligence gathering.
PERSONALITY STRIKE A targeted attack on a particular individual identified as a terrorist leader.
SIGNATURE STRIKE A strike against someone believed to be a
militant whose identity isn’t necessarily known. Such strikes are
reportedly based on a “pattern of life” analysis – intelligence on their
behavior suggesting that an individual is a militant. The policy,
reportedly
begun by Bush in Pakistan in 2008, is
now allowed in Yemen.
TADS Terror Attack Disruption Strikes, sometimes used to refer to
some strikes when the identity of the target is not known.
Administration officials
have said that
the criteria for TADS are different from signature strikes, but it is not clear how.
Who to Follow
For reporting and commentary on the drone war on Twitter:
@drones collects
op-eds and news on well, drones. (Run by members of the Electronic
Frontiers Foundation, which has been outspoken about privacy concerns in
the use of domestic drones, but it also covers national security.)
@natlsecuritycnn has breaking news.
@Dangerroom from Wired covers national security and technology, including a lot on drones.
@lawfareblog covers the drone war’s legal dimensions.
@gregorydjohnsen is an expert on Yemen, who is closely following the war there.
@AfPakChannel from the New America Foundation and Foreign Policy tweets news and commentary on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Contacts and sources:
Cora Currier,
ProPublica
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