Page 114 - Drone Program News Today

The US Treasury has blacklisted two individuals and four entities involved in Iran's unmanned aerial vehicles program. Washington has said Iranian drones have been used to attack US forces and international shipping.

Chancellor angela merkel. in a joint statement, the leaders called on iran to change course and return to jcpoa compliance in order to have sanctions lifted. its coming a day after the u.s. imposed new sanctions on iran related to its drone program and less than a week after teherans announcements that nuclear talks would return. joining me now is evelyn farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia. thanks for joining us. i guess give me your reaction, first, to the joint stat...

Nuclear program and whats that looking like. >> this is a big issue. >> and i havent spoken to anybody on the u.s. side or european side who is positive about the progress of iran talks. they note that negotiators are signed by hard -- line, we have a particularly hardline, negotiators are opposed to the deal. those are quite a set of individuals to have across from the eu and the u.s., as theyre discussing the iran deal. so, the u.s. position right now, they need to see some progress from iran ...

People that our drone program has adequate programs and secretary austin you said we have learned from the latest mistake, what have you learned? >> thanks. again, remind you, i have directed review of this operation and so i wont make any comments on specifics here because that review is ongoing. but in terms of our commitment to learning from all of our operations, we remain committed to doing that and we are specifically concerned when there is an inadvertent loss of life and injury to civili...

Meaning they were given permission to fire against the targets based on a signature of pattern of suspected militant activity versus actually knowing who was in the vehicle. that is very dangerous. this is very atypical operation. typically over the horizon strikes, require a lot of proof of life, intelligence that takes place over course of days or weeks, even months. this was a situation where the military was in a defense sieve posture. they had to act fast from what they believed to be an im...

What do i think is yes, we do need oversight. number two, at least i am relieved that this administration transparently admitted this mistake. we have to be accountable. and even in the fog of war. would he have to be accountable for what we do. we have to be accountable for what we do. i worry a lot about the language we use around war, the euphemisms and we have to take a look at our drone program with over the horizon capabilities, we see over the horizon was not capability, it was tragic, te...

Point out is how wonderful it is that we are now in an administration who will openly be transparent and admit when they have made mistakes. who are willing to come to the american people and say that something went wrong and that they are going to correct it. as opposed to the previous administration under donald trump who won be willing to say that and continue to perpetuate lies. >> just to be clear, they initially didnt say it was a mistake. they said the guy may have had explosives. it was ...

Civilians there. so certainly, it raises questions about the drone program going forward but as of now, the white house has been absolutely silent about this. >> and i understand some new reporting on this rare move for france to recall their ambassador to the u.s.? >> yes, this is very bizarre almost that there would be a row between the biden administration and the french government. that is exactly what has happened. never in modern times has the french government recalled its ambassador whic...

They now believe those may have been the gas tank or propane tank in the courtyard. what are they saying about this? >> well, president biden is saying nothing about this, anderson. we do know he was briefed early today at the white house before leaving washington to go spend the week at his beach home in r rohobeth, delaware. the u.s. was in charge of those drone strikes. this is probably the worst bad news for the white house, the tragic killing of 10 civilians there. certainly it raises quest...

Specifically the drone issue, clearly there have been a lot of concerns raised about civilian deaths of drone strikes over the 20 years the u.s. has been involved in afghanistan. >> the drone strike is terrible. its a tragedy. it involves not just up to 10 civilians but seven children in that group of people, so it is deeply problematic as a catastrophe, a human catastrophe. its also problem aatic for the white house, not just because of the drone program, but it reminds people about the chaos a...