[News] New report demonstrates previous US Government claims on drones have been false

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Reprieve June 30th, 2016 http://www.reprieve.org.uk/topic/drones/

New report demonstrates previous US Government claims

on drones have been false*

Ahead of an announcement from the White House on civilian casualties 
from drone strikes, expected as early as tomorrow 
<http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-obama-drone-casualties-20160627-snap-story.html> 
(Friday July 1^st ), international human rights organization Reprieve 
has released a report 
<http://www.reprieve.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Obama-Drones-transparency-FINAL.pdf> 
demonstrating how the Administration’s previous statements on the issue 
have proved to be false.

 >From CIA Director John Brennan’s June 2011 assertion that “there 
hasn’t been a single collateral death” to President Obama’s claim that 
strikes only take place when there is “near certainty” that civilians 
won’t be killed, the Administration’s statements, both on record and 
off, have been undermined by Government leaks and independent assessments.

The CIA itself had recorded a civilian casualty 
<https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/04/11/secret-us-documents-show-brennans-no-civilian-drone-deaths-claim-was-false/> 
from a Pakistan drone strike just two months before Mr Brennan’s claim 
that there hadn’t been any “for nearly a year.”  Meanwhile, independent 
investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and 
others identified 45 civilian casualties from a strike on a meeting of 
local elders  in March 2011.

The President’s claims on “near certainty” were themselves contradicted 
by internal CIA documents which, according to /McClatchy/ 
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24747826.html>, 
“show[ed] that drone operators weren’t always certain who they were 
killing despite the administration’s guarantees.”

In addition, his 2013 policy on the 'Use of Force in Counterterrorism 
Operations' has since been undermined by revelations that ‘signature 
strikes,’ which target people based on patterns of behavior without 
knowing their identities, have secretly been allowed to continue in 
Pakistan and possibly Yemen.

According to the report, which is available on Reprieve’s website 
<http://www.reprieve.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Obama-Drones-transparency-FINAL.pdf>,

/What little the Obama Administration has previously said on the record 
about the drone program has been shown by the facts on the ground, and 
even the US Government’s own internal documents, to be false.  Any claim 
of low numbers of civilian casualties will therefore have to be read 
against the more rigorous work of organizations such as the Bureau of 
Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), which estimates a low of 492 civilian 
casualties across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and a high of potentially 
1138. /

/But more importantly, it has to be asked what bare numbers will mean if 
they omit even basic details such as the names of those killed and the 
areas, even the countries, they live in.  Equally, the numbers without 
the definitions to back up how the Administration is defining its 
targets is useless, especially given reports the Obama Administration 
has shifted the goalposts on what counts as a ‘civilian’ to such an 
extent that any estimate may be far removed from reality. In US drone 
operations, reports suggest all “military aged males” and potentially 
even women and children are considered “enemies killed in action” unless 
they can “posthumously” and “conclusively” prove their innocence./

ENDS
Notes to editors

1. Reprieve is an international human rights organization. Reprieve’s 
London office can be contacted on: communications [at] reprieve.org.uk / 
+44 (0) 207 553 8140. Reprieve US, based in New York City, can be 
contacted on Katherine [dot] oshea [at] reprieve.org / +1 917 855 8064.

2. The report is available on Reprieve's website, here 
<http://www.reprieve.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Obama-Drones-transparency-FINAL.pdf>. 

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20160630/35cae1c2/attachment.htm>