cosimoilvecchio / CC BY-ND 2.0

More than three years after President Barack Obama pledged to be transparent about the United States’ lethal drone program, his administration has finally come forward with an accounting of the numbers of civilian deaths that resulted from drone strikes between Jan. 20, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2015. But they only cover airstrikes “outside areas of active hostilities,” which encompasses Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. Civilian deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are not included in the report. As expected, the administration’s numbers are significantly lower than tallies documented by leading nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, New America and The Long War Journal. Obama’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) sets the figure of “noncombatant deaths” at between 64 and 116. The NGOs , however, estimate between 200 and 1,000 civilian deaths occurred as a result of U.S. drone strikes in the areas, and during the time periods, covered by the DNI report. The DNI report omits significant details that would enable the public to fully assess its claims, including the locations, dates, numbers and names of both civilians and combatants killed in each airstrike. Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Washington Post that releasing raw numbers without explanation “leaves reason to remain skeptical of the government’s claims. You can’t grade your own homework.” There is good reason to distrust the DNI’s claimed numbers of civilian casualties. “Every previous (rare) public, on-record statement made by the Obama administration on the program has been shown to be false or deeply misleading,” the international human rights organization Reprieve noted in a recent report. “Moreover, the administration has repeatedly shifted the goal posts, secretly redefining who can be targeted and what it means to be a civilian,” it said. One of the Obama administration’s most notorious lies was the statement of current CIA Director and former counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, who claimed in June 2011 that there had not been a “single collateral death” caused by drones in 2010-2011. As Reprieve reports, the CIA knew that statement was false at the time it was made. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented at least 45 civilian casualties during that period. While the DNI report is far from perfect, it provides much more information than the administration previously disclosed. Before the report was released, the U.S. had admitted responsibility for only two civilian deaths: the 2015 accidental killing of two aid workers held hostage by al-Qaida in Pakistan. Both those victims were Westerners. But much more information is needed. It is disappointing that the report lumps together seven years of airstrikes, making it impossible to gauge whether Obama is complying with the rules he established in 2013 for his targeted killings. The 2013 Presidential Policy Guidance remains classified. The White House released a fact sheet that year requiring that strikes outside areas of active hostilities be taken only in the face of a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons” and when there is “near certainty that the terrorist target is present.” Although the fact sheet did not define “continuing” or “imminent,” a leaked 2011 Department of Justice white paper said that a U.S. citizen can be killed even when there is no “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” This makes a mockery of the “imminence” requirement for killing U.S. citizens. The administration presumably sets an even lower bar for noncitizens. It is impossible to fathom how the administration can have near certainty that a terrorist target is present. One type of drone attack is called a “signature strike,” also known as a crowd killing. A signature strike does not target specified individuals but rather areas of suspicious activity. In many instances, the U.S. doesn’t know whom it is killing. Along with the DNI report, Obama released an executive order prioritizing the protection of civilians and requiring that future administrations be forthcoming about annual deaths from the drone program. One wonders why Obama waited until seven years into his presidency and seven months before leaving office to prioritize the protection of civilians and advocate transparency. And any future president is free to modify or rescind his order. Obama’s order says, “Civilian casualties are a tragic and at times unavoidable consequence of the use of force in situations of armed conflict or in the exercise of a state’s inherent right of self-defense.” Your support matters…

Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.

You can help level the playing field. Become a member.

Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.

Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.

SUPPORT TRUTHDIG
In this Article:
#afghanistan#barack obama#cia#civilians#drone strikes#iraq#libya#marjorie cohn#pakistan#somalia#td-original#usa