Page 130 - Drone Program News Today

It was yesterday when a senior administration official gave the news to the family. then you had the phone call from the president to them. a difficult conversation with that news. but we also know from the familys statement and from previous comments they were not happy with the treatment from some administration officials. as you know thats a criticism weve heard not just from this family but other families the family of james foley for instance the families of some of the americans held in ir...

Acknowledgment jim, that the punishment was too light and thats likely why the judge upped the fee that he must pay to $100,000. jim? >> well, its a remarkable fall. the former chief of the cia. pamela brawn, thanks for joining us. back to our big story today. three americans, one hostage and two al qaeda operatives were inadvertently killed by u.s. drone strikes in and around the afghanistan-pakistan border. that reigniting debate over the whole u.s. drone program. it has been a lightning rod f...

And i think those arguments will come out and i think those are valid arguments. >> tom we hear people say maybe we should get rid of the drone program altogether. is that realistic when we have reports of china, russia and iran have drones? >> no it is not realistic. it is one of the few tools we have of taking terrorists off the battlefield in denied areas where we have imperfect intelligence. this is one of the cases. we simply dont have the means to get them at all places and to reduce the c...

And weinsteins deaths lie entirely with the terrorists. the italians not taking this opportunity to be at this stage sharply critical of the drone program and saying it was in fact the responsibility of the al qaeda militants who were holding the italian national and dr. weinstein. >> and theres no give on that position u.s. position? >> no andrea. weve heard this time and again. regrets, complaints from many family members. even warnings from u.s. officials that if the family itself sought to p...

Where the president has spoken about things and it feels like its hitting him on some extra level, thinking about the newton school shootings as another example. and this was one of them. and theres got to be a built up frustration with this president who gave a speech at the national defense university almost exactly two years ago. it was in may of 2013 where he talked about america being at a crossroads in the war of terrorism, not letting the war on terror design fine us.fine us. saying he wa...

Effective tool against al qaeda and bin laden himself. we saw this he had indicated how much of a toll the drone strikes had taken on al qaeda. this was determined by the documents found in bin ladens compound after he was eliminated in may 200711. i think its clear that drone strikes have been effective, but they are not a strategy. drone strikes are a tool a tactic we should use. certainly the administration needs a much broader and more comprehensive counterterrorism strategy strategy. >> wit...

When i asked about whether or not it was effective or not in degrading al qaeda. he said it has extremely effective the drone program. thats not consoling to the families tonight. >> first up we have to put our hearts out and our sympathy to the families. this is terrible. they have to watch the news coverage of this and talk about their loved ones and its a sad thing. the drone program has been effective. i want to be clear about something. this isnt the fault of the drone program. this isnt th...

Correspondent dana bash is on capitol hill with senator john mccain, whos been very vocal on the u.s. drone program. dana it will be interesting to hear what he has to say. >> thats right. thank you so much jim. youre the chairman of the armed services committee. you obviously are very well versed in the drone policy. given what happened should the drone policy be revisited? >> i think what happened should be revisited, obviously, because a terrible thing happened when two innocent people were k...

Figuring out what to do when you detain these operatives. where do you send them and hold them? what are their legal rights if you have them. when they get killed you dont have to worry about those issues. i think this will start a robust debate that needs to happen on this drone program because this is something that has become -- the secretary of navy announced last week when they announced to the last purchase of the f-35 manned jet fighter said it will be the last man fighter jet the u.s. na...

Communities. i think people get more upset not in terms -- totally, this police brutality is huge. but i think good citizens are discouraged when police officers dont take care of the bad elements that are in our communities. so many of us think the police arent policing well in our communities. they sometimes brutalize good people and dont find ways to discourage some of the bad behavior of hoodlums in our neighborhoods. >> carl stokes, thank you very much for taking the time today. i appreciat...