Drone Papers: Leaked Military Documents Expose US 'Assassination Complex'
Published on
Thursday, October 15, 2015
by
Common Dreams
Drone Papers: Leaked Military Documents Expose US 'Assassination Complex'
Based on cache of secret slides leaked by national security whistleblower,
stunning exposé by The Intercept reveals inner workingsand failuresof the
U.S. military's clandestine efforts in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia
by
Nadia Prupis, staff writer
The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret slides that provides a window
into the inner workings of the U.S. militarys kill/capture operations at a
key time in the evolution of the drone wars between 2011 and 2013. (Image:
The Intercept)
A stunning new exposé by The Intercept, which includes the publication of
classified documents leaked by an intelligence source, provides an
unprecedented look at the U.S. military's secretive global assassination
program.
The series of articles, titled The Drone Papers, follows months of
investigation and uses rare primary source documents and slides to reveal to
the public, for the first time, the flaws and consequences of the U.S.
military's 14-year aerial campaign being conducted in Yemen, Somalia, and
Afghanistanone that has consistently used faulty information, killed an
untold number of civilians, and stymied intelligence-gathering through its
"kill/capture" program that too often relies on killing rather than
capturing.
"The series is intended to serve as a long-overdue public examination of the
methods and outcomes of America's assassination program," writes the
investigation's lead reporter, Jeremy Scahill. "This campaign, carried out
by two presidents through four presidential terms, has been shrouded in
excessive secrecy. The public has a right to see these documents not only to
engage in an informed debate about the future of U.S. wars, both overt and
covert, but also to understand the circumstances under which the U.S.
government arrogates to itself the right to sentence individuals to death
without the established checks and balances of arrest, trial, and appeal."
The source of the documents, who asked to remain anonymous due to the U.S.
government's aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers, said the public has a
right to know about a program that is so "fundamentally" and "morally"
flawed.
"It's stunning the number of instances when Ive come across intelligence
that was faulty, when sources of information used to finish targets were
misattributed to people," he told The Intercept. "And it isn't until several
months or years later that you realize that the entire time you thought you
were going after this target, it was his mothers phone the whole time.
Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association its a phenomenal
gamble."
As outlined by The Intercept, the key revelations of the reporting are:
Assassinations have depended on unreliable intelligence. More than
half the intelligence used to track potential kills in Yemen and Somalia was
based on electronic communications data from phones, computers, and targeted
intercepts (know as signals intelligence) which, the government admits, it
has poor and limited capability to collect. By the militarys own
admission, it was lacking in reliable information from human sources.
The documents contradict Administration claims that its operations
against high-value terrorists are limited and precise. Contrary to claims
that these campaigns narrowly target specific individuals, the documents
show that air strikes under the Obama administration have killed significant
numbers of unnamed bystanders. Documents detailing a 14-month kill/capture
campaign in Afghanistan, for example, show that while the U.S. military
killed 35 of its direct targets with air strikes, 219 other individuals also
died in the attacks.
In Afghanistan, the military has designated unknown men it kills as
Enemies Killed in Action. According to The Intercepts source, the
military has a practice of labeling individuals killed in air strikes this
way unless evidence emerges to prove otherwise.
Assassinations hurt intelligence gathering. The Pentagon study finds
that killing suspected terrorists, even if they are legitimate targets,
significantly reduce[s] the information available and further hampers
intelligence gathering.
New details about the kill chain reveal a bureaucratic structure
headed by President Obama, by which U.S. government officials select and
authorize targets for assassination outside traditional legal and justice
systems, and with little transparency. The system included creating a
portrait of a potential target in a condensed format known as a Baseball
Card, which was passed to the White House for approval, while individual
drone strikes were often authorized by other officials.
Inconsistencies with publicly available White House statements
about targeted killings. Administration policy standards issued in 2013
state that lethal force will be launched only against targets that pose a
continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons, however documents from the
same time reveal much more vague criteria, including that a person only need
present a threat to U.S. interest or personnel.
New details of high-profile drone kills, including the 2012 killing
in Somalia of Bilal al-Berjawi, which raise questions about whether the
British government revoked his citizenship to facilitate the strike.
Information about a largely covert effort to extend the U.S.
militarys footprint across the African continent, including through a
network of mostly small and low-profile airfields in Djibouti and other
African countries.
The investigation comes as the Obama administration announced plans on
Thursday to delay withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Administration
officials told CNN that troops may conduct "counterterrorism operations"
against Islamic State (ISIS) militants there.
But as the documents reveal, assurances from the Obama administration that
drone strikes are precise and used only in cases of "imminent" threats are
themselves based on intentionally vague definitions of "imminence."
"Privately, the architects of the U.S. drone program have acknowledged its
shortcomings," said Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of The Intercept. "But they
have made sure that this campaign, launched by Bush and vastly expanded
under Obama, has been shrouded in secrecy. The public has a right to know
how the US government has decided who to kill."
As the source himself said, "Were allowing this to happen. And by 'we,' I
mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but
continues to do nothing about it."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
Drone Papers: Leaked Military Documents Expose US 'Assassination Complex'
Published on
Thursday, October 15, 2015
by
Common Dreams
Drone Papers: Leaked Military Documents Expose US 'Assassination Complex'
Based on cache of secret slides leaked by national security whistleblower,
stunning exposé by The Intercept reveals inner workingsand failuresof the
U.S. military's clandestine efforts in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia
by
Nadia Prupis, staff writer
61 Comments
The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret slides that provides a
window into the inner workings of the U.S. militarys kill/capture
operations at a key time in the evolution of the drone wars between 2011
and 2013. (Image: The Intercept)
A stunning new exposé by The Intercept, which includes the
publication of classified documents leaked by an intelligence source,
provides an unprecedented look at the U.S. military's secretive global
assassination program.
The series of articles, titled The Drone Papers, follows months of
investigation and uses rare primary source documents and slides to reveal to
the public, for the first time, the flaws and consequences of the U.S.
military's 14-year aerial campaign being conducted in Yemen, Somalia, and
Afghanistanone that has consistently used faulty information, killed an
untold number of civilians, and stymied intelligence-gathering through its
"kill/capture" program that too often relies on killing rather than
capturing.
"The series is intended to serve as a long-overdue public
examination of the methods and outcomes of America's assassination program,"
writes the investigation's lead reporter, Jeremy Scahill. "This campaign,
carried out by two presidents through four presidential terms, has been
shrouded in excessive secrecy. The public has a right to see these documents
not only to engage in an informed debate about the future of U.S. wars, both
overt and covert, but also to understand the circumstances under which the
U.S. government arrogates to itself the right to sentence individuals to
death without the established checks and balances of arrest, trial, and
appeal."
The source of the documents, who asked to remain anonymous due to
the U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers, said the
public has a right to know about a program that is so "fundamentally" and
"morally" flawed.
"It's stunning the number of instances when Ive come across
intelligence that was faulty, when sources of information used to finish
targets were misattributed to people," he told The Intercept. "And it isn't
until several months or years later that you realize that the entire time
you thought you were going after this target, it was his mothers phone the
whole time. Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association its a
phenomenal gamble."
As outlined by The Intercept, the key revelations of the reporting are:
Assassinations have depended on unreliable intelligence. More than
half the intelligence used to track potential kills in Yemen and Somalia was
based on electronic communications data from phones, computers, and targeted
intercepts (know as signals intelligence) which, the government admits, it
has poor and limited capability to collect. By the militarys own
admission, it was lacking in reliable information from human sources.
The documents contradict Administration claims that its operations
against high-value terrorists are limited and precise. Contrary to claims
that these campaigns narrowly target specific individuals, the documents
show that air strikes under the Obama administration have killed significant
numbers of unnamed bystanders. Documents detailing a 14-month kill/capture
campaign in Afghanistan, for example, show that while the U.S. military
killed 35 of its direct targets with air strikes, 219 other individuals also
died in the attacks.
In Afghanistan, the military has designated unknown men it kills as
Enemies Killed in Action. According to The Intercepts source, the
military has a practice of labeling individuals killed in air strikes this
way unless evidence emerges to prove otherwise.
Assassinations hurt intelligence gathering. The Pentagon study finds
that killing suspected terrorists, even if they are legitimate targets,
significantly reduce[s] the information available and further hampers
intelligence gathering.
New details about the kill chain reveal a bureaucratic structure
headed by President Obama, by which U.S. government officials select and
authorize targets for assassination outside traditional legal and justice
systems, and with little transparency. The system included creating a
portrait of a potential target in a condensed format known as a Baseball
Card, which was passed to the White House for approval, while individual
drone strikes were often authorized by other officials.
Inconsistencies with publicly available White House statements about
targeted killings. Administration policy standards issued in 2013 state that
lethal force will be launched only against targets that pose a continuing,
imminent threat to U.S. persons, however documents from the same time
reveal much more vague criteria, including that a person only need present
a threat to U.S. interest or personnel.
New details of high-profile drone kills, including the 2012 killing
in Somalia of Bilal al-Berjawi, which raise questions about whether the
British government revoked his citizenship to facilitate the strike.
Information about a largely covert effort to extend the U.S.
militarys footprint across the African continent, including through a
network of mostly small and low-profile airfields in Djibouti and other
African countries.
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The investigation comes as the Obama administration announced plans on
Thursday to delay withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Administration
officials told CNN that troops may conduct "counterterrorism operations"
against Islamic State (ISIS) militants there.
But as the documents reveal, assurances from the Obama administration that
drone strikes are precise and used only in cases of "imminent" threats are
themselves based on intentionally vague definitions of "imminence."
"Privately, the architects of the U.S. drone program have acknowledged its
shortcomings," said Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of The Intercept. "But they
have made sure that this campaign, launched by Bush and vastly expanded
under Obama, has been shrouded in secrecy. The public has a right to know
how the US government has decided who to kill."
As the source himself said, "Were allowing this to happen. And by 'we,' I
mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but
continues to do nothing about it."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License