Is the CIA Better Than the Military at Drone Killings?

It’s been more than a year since incoming CIA Director John Brennan signaled his intention to shift drone warfare to the Pentagon as soon as possible. Brennan, a career spook, was said to be determined to restore the agency to its roots as an espionage factory, not a paramilitary organization. And President Obama endorsed his plan to hand drone warfare over to the military, according to administration officials.

But a funny thing happened on the way back to cloak-and-dagger. According to intelligence experts and some powerful friends of the CIA on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the agency may simply be much better than the military at killing people in a targeted, precise way—and, above all, at ensuring that the bad guys they’re getting are really bad guys. And that distinction has become more important than ever at a time when Obama is intent on moving away from a “permanent war footing” and on restricting targeted killings exclusively to a handful of Qaida-linked senior terrorists.

No public data exist on the accuracy and reliability of the strikes launched by theCIA versus those by the Pentagon, says Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal, who has tracked drone attacks. And the administration has insisted that all targeted killings must meet the same threshold. Obama said in a landmark speech at the National Defense University last year, “Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured—the highest standard we can set.” Nonetheless, the Pentagon’s most recent botched hit in Yemen, a territory shared by the CIA and the Defense Department, pointed up problems with the military-run program that have long worried detractors. The strike in December killed a dozen people in an 11-vehicle convoy that tribal leaders later said was part of a wedding procession.

…

In addition, the CIA operates only outside declared war zones, such as in Pakistan or Yemen. But some experts remain puzzled about why the CIA and the Pentagon maintain different thresholds for action. “Why can’t the CIA do what it’s designed to do, which is to gather intelligence and then hand it over to the military, which is supposed to kill the bad guys?” Roggio asks.

Read the full article here.