Page 127 - Drone Program News Today

Controversies of jeb bush here on t "the last word i "on. eugene, david, michael, nina thank you all for joining us throughout the show tonight on "all in." >> as president and as commander in chief, i take full responsibility for all our counter terrorism operations. >> the president makes a stunning announcement. >> we believe that a u.s. counter terrorism operation targeting an al qaeda compound in the afghanistan-pakistan border region accidentally killed warren and giovanni this past janu...

Shes a pentagon reporter for "the washington post." thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you. were talking about drones, were talking about basically the trigger being pulled thousands of miles away. it opens up to seems to me a pretty huge possibilities and margin for error if were going to have a drone program that targets terrorists thousands of miles away, do we have to accept the feature that american may be killed? >> thats exactly right. the drone operation has become a cornerstone of ...

About all of this about the drone program, about covert operations in places where this country is not technically at war, places like yemen and pakistan. the president spoke that day about the casualties that come with that sort of warfare. >> it is a hard fact that u.s. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. for me and those in my chain of command, those deaths will ...

Qaeda. were talking about al qaeda pockets that arent necessarily coordinating with each other. you heard a reference to the network of pakistanis that has held hostages and afghan taliban and pakistani taliban and some of those cases if you think about the range of intelligence, think about the bin laden operation. youre going to have enough fidelity on the target to say theres a named individual in there we can go after. in other cases youll say he see a collection of al qaeda guys in my intel...

>> that was essentially the reaction on capitol hill. >> we need all the facts for the families and so that we can make sure that nothing like this ever happens again in our efforts to keep an american safe. >> but critics are raising questions. >> the cia apparently does not even know who it has killed until weeks after the fact. that calls into question not just the standards under which this lethal force program is being carried out, but the relieblth of the intelligence that has been used. >...

They well into a broader category first identified by the new york times in 2012, whats known as signature strikes, which target training camps and compounds in areas controlled by militants. here is white house press secretary josh earnest describing the operation. >> this is a scenario where u.s. officials had determined, with near certainty, that an operation could be carried out against an al qaeda compound that was frequented or at least where at least one al qaeda leader was located. >> th...

Got their man. the other five just happened to be hanging out in these places and appear to have been members of al qaeda, although a little unclear how high up they were. what conclusions can we draw here? >> well, i think the first point to remember is that much of the drone program is done in secret, right? so the point is, what conclusions can we draw? we dont know because the administration has been -- has been keeping everything under wraps. what does seem significant is that, in the repor...

Layer ed layered. >> they also didnt know that some of the operatives they were killing, they thought they had four they had four and they didnt know that who of them were american. there is going be changes in the drone program. i have validated the target. i have surveilled enough to get pattern of life. i know where the women and children are. if you want to take that one step further and say we are going try to perfect this i got one question for yo and that is how. were talking about hundre...

>> so, again, because of the secrecy, we know very little. there are some indications here or there that some money may go. but the people who are affected, who have lost loved ones, they dont see this as sufficient. they want an investigation. they want justice. they want acknowledgement. >> they want a review, like the review that has been ordered in this case in which it happened to be an american and an italian who were killed. >> i think thats an important point, chris, is that today were l...

Those are among the key questions that need to be answered. the drone program has expanded significantly under president obama and started under george w. bush but drone strikes have expanded by about ten times in some of these places like pakistan syria, and also somalia and yemen. so those are going to be among the big questions that need to be answered and the focus, does this drone program need to be overhauled. >> thank you very much for that. lets bring in senior daily beast correspondent ...