.
"The guidance applies only to
military drone strikes and not necessarily to those carried out by the
CIA." Oct. 12 document from Pentagon website.
12/3/13, "Obama war chiefs widen drone kill box," Washington Times, Kristina Wong
"The Pentagon
has loosened its guidelines on avoiding civilian casualties during
drone strikes, modifying instructions from requiring military personnel
to “ensure” civilians are not targeted to encouraging service members to
“avoid targeting” civilians.
In addition, instructions now tell
commanders that collateral damage “must not be excessive” in relation to
mission goals, according to Public Intelligence, a nonprofit research group that analyzed the military’s directives on drone strikes.
“These
subtle but important changes in wording provide insight into the
military’s attempts to limit expectations in regards to minimizing
collateral damage and predicting the lethal effects of military
operations,” Public Intelligence said in a recent report.
The
number of civilian casualties caused by U.S. drone strikes is a point
of contention among Washington, human rights groups and countries where
strikes are conducted, chiefly Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
Because the strikes are classified operations, the U.S. typically does
not acknowledge when they occur, or reveal how many combatants and
civilians are killed or injured.
An official for the Air Force
— the service primarily tasked with carrying out drone strikes — said
“tactical directives have changed a number of times over the years to
tackle collateral damage concerns not only from aircraft and helicopters
but from mortars and other weapons that deliver effects beyond line of
sight.”
The official, who requested anonymity to discuss security
matters, declined to say how the directives have changed or what the
collateral damage concerns are, citing “operational security.”
Military
officials, however, said the Joint Chiefs document is one of several
that instruct commanders on conducting drone strikes, as well as
theater-specific rules of engagement and the overarching Law of Armed
Conflict.
The October 2012 document was published on a Pentagon website several months ago but has since been removed, said Public Intelligence founder and editor Michael Haynes, who obtained and analyzed the documents.
A military official confirmed that the document is being used, among others, to provide guidance for drones.
Human rights groups say such secrecy prevents scrutiny and accountability for civilian casualties. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have released reports focused on Pakistan and Yemen that say the strikes could be illegal and that the U.S. has killed more than 4,700 people, including more than 1,000 civilians.
Administration officials say the strikes are legal because the U.S. is at war with al Qaeda
and its associates. They also insist there is a wide gap between the
government’s civilian casualty count and those of human rights groups.
“Before
any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians
will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set,” President
Obama said in a rare acknowledgment of the strikes in May 2013.
Public Intelligence
conducted a word-for-word analysis of an instructional document from
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff titled “No-Strike and the
Collateral Damage Estimate Methodology,” which was provided to the American Civil Liberties Union in 2009, and a version of the document that was updated in October 2012. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the 2009 version, which is posted on its website.
The
2009 version directs military personnel to take reasonable precautions
to ensure that civilians are not targeted in attacks; the 2012 version
says service members should “avoid targeting” civilians.
“A
requirement to ‘ensure’ that civilians are not the subject of attacks is
changed to an admonishment to ‘avoid targeting’ civilians,” Mr. Haynes said.
Moreover,
commanders had been instructed to “consider the military necessity for
attacking the target, proportionality of the means planned, and
reasonableness within the framework of operational objectives.” The
modified language tells leaders that collateral damage “must not be
excessive” in relation to mission objectives.
What’s more, the
updated version adds a paragraph that says the process for estimating
collateral damage outlined in the document “does not account for
secondary explosions” caused by the strike, such as of a weapons cache
or fuel tank, because those explosions “cannot be consistently measured
or predicted.”
“The section does say that commanders should be
‘cognizant of the risks’ from secondary explosions, but this is fairly
weak wording and does not imply necessary compliance,” Mr. Haynes said.
The
earlier version also defines “collateral concern” as objects that are
“not considered lawful military targets” under the Law of Armed
Conflict. The updated version defines the term as objects “located
inside the collateral hazard area.”
The guidance applies only to
military drone strikes and not necessarily to those carried out by the
CIA, although the military and the CIA work together on some drone
operations.
Citing an increase in drone operations last year in Libya, Air Force
officials said the number of military drone strikes in 2013 is expected
to be lower than in 2012. Officials said military drones last year led
to or helped ground troops kill and/or capture more than 1,850 enemy
combatants.
Officials declined to specify how many enemy combatants were killed or captured. Pentagon
statistics show that 361 Hellfire missiles and six 500-pound
laser-guided bombs were fired in 2012.
In 2011, 432 Hellfire missiles
and 19 500-pound laser-guided bombs were fired.
Military officials
say they take great care in differentiating civilians from combatants
and sometimes wait several weeks until a target is away from relatives
and civilians. But they also acknowledge that it can be difficult to
assess civilian casualties or other collateral damage, especially when a
target is hiding in a structure or under foliage.
Given this
difficulty, the collateral damage estimate “is our best means of
minimizing civilian casualties and damages to nearby structures,” said a
spokesman for Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.
“I have talked to Pentagon
officials that say they are very, very careful,” said Sarah Holewinski,
executive director of Civilians in Conflict. “But it’s not enough to
have a conversation and have to trust. There should be a lot more
transparency.”
Despite Mr. Obama’s pledge for more transparency on
drone strikes, the administration “continues to answer legitimate
questions and criticisms by saying, ‘We can’t really talk about this,’”
said Naureen Shah, advocacy adviser at Amnesty International.
Senior
administration officials recently met with representatives of human
rights organizations to discuss reports that the groups published in
October, but told participants not to reveal who attended the meetings,
where they met or what was discussed.
“To me, this is just yet
another example of the unreasonable level of secrecy surrounding this
program,” said Letta Tayler, author of Human Rights Watch’s report on U.S. drone strikes in Yemen.
“We hope that the U.S. will move swiftly to acknowledge basic details of these strikes.” via Zero Hedge
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Public Intelligence site
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