“They’ve based it on the personal legitimacy of [President] Obama — the ‘trust me’ concept,” Anderson said. “That’s not a viable concept for a president going forward.”
Secrecy’s fierce defenders
Secrecy defines Obama’s drone war
(THIR KHAN/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES ) - Pakistani tribesmen carry the coffin of a person allegedly killed in a U.S. drone attack, claiming that innocent civilians were killed during a June 15 strike in the North Waziristan village of Tapi. Around 300 tribesmen gathered at the demonstration.
The legalities of the U.S. drone program
Administration advocates of more openness about the drone program are in a minority. Many of them are in the State Department, where some officials argue that the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan is the primary cause of widespread anti-Americanism.
The Pakistani government charges the United States is wantonly killing far more militant foot soldiers and civilians than senior insurgent leaders. With no independent access to the region by journalists or humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, there is no way to verify the accuracy or effectiveness of the strikes.
Much of the resistance to increased disclosure has come from the CIA, which has argued that the release of any information about the program, particularly on how targets are chosen and strikes approved, would aid the enemy.
Among other variables, according to one source briefed on the program, those selecting targets calculate how much potential collateral damage is acceptable relative to the value of the target. An insurgent leader aware of such logic, they said, could avoid an attack simply by positioning himself in the midst of enough civilians to make the strike too costly.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has opposed the declassification of any portion of its opinion justifying the targeted killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen this year. Awlaki, a propagandist for the Yemen-based al-Qaeda affiliate whom Obama identified as its “external operations” chief, was the first American known to have been the main target of a drone strike. While officials say they did not require special permission to kill him, the administration apparently felt it would be prudent to spell out its legal rationale.
Many administration lawyers strongly disapprove of opinions written under President George W. Bush that justified detainee interrogation methods now widely regarded as torture. But they worry that Obama’s 2009 decision to make them public has set a precedent for the release of normally classified opinions.
The Defense Department’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which has carried out strikes in Yemen and Somalia, refuses to discuss drones or any other aspect of its secret counterterrorism operations.
Senior administration officials say they deserve to be trusted on drones, in part because Obama kept his pledge to do away with the CIA’s secret prisons and the use of harsh interrogation techniques.
At home, the drone program has escaped serious public questioning because it is widely perceived as successful in eliminating insurgent leaders, has not put U.S. personnel at physical risk and has taken place largely out of sight.
Abroad, no other government has offered public support for the program.
“If you sat around a cabinet meeting in my country and asked the attorney general what he thought of the administration’s legal reasoning, he would say we disagree,” said a senior diplomat from a European ally. But public concerns in his country, he said, are not loud enough to force a confrontation with Washington.
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