Gadahn Operation News Today

Family hey, we think he might be dead. >> i dont have a specific time frame for that. but what i can tell you is that as the intelligence community began to develop information pointed to the death of dr. weinstein. that information was briefed to the president and that information was share would the weinstein family. >> you dont have the information because you dont have it or because -- what would the security risks boof ss be of telling us with more precision of when some of these things hap...

What we can do instead, though leverage intelligence assets to for example in this case actually conduct extensive surveillance of a particular compound. and as i mentioned, hundreds of thundershower hours of surveillance was conducted against this particular compound. we know that near continuous surveillance of this compound was conducted in the days leading up to the operation. and based on that surveillance and other forms of intelligence intelligence communities did assess with near certain...

Reviews are not unusual. the security professionals after every operation try to ereview what had occurred even when its successful. particularly when its successful to derive lessons learned and look for other ways or changes that could be put in place to strengthen our protocols, both in terms of their capabilities and ensuring that theyre living up to the values that are so important to our country. >> mr. weinstein said today she hoped her husband death would prompt the u.s. government to ta...

Took place. and that operation did result in the death of al qaeda fighters and al qaeda leaders who were in this al qaeda compound. >> but would it have been illegal for you to intentionally target those two men? >> there is a separate procedure and protocol for specifically targeting american citizens. and this is the protocol that was followed in the targeted operation against anwar in yemen. so there is a separate procedure and protocol for doing exactly that. >> so if it was not adam gadahn...

>> can you address the issue of drones in any way? i take it you dont want to confirm that that is what was used on this particular strike? >> im not in the position to talk about how the operation was carried out. >> can you talk to them about the future review of drone strategy more generally? >> what i can say is that these counterterrorism operations that are critical to the national security of the united states and critical to the safety of the american people continue. at the same time th...

Place and to the best of our knowledge, was closely followed by our counterterrorism professionals was to adhere to this near certainty standard. and that near certainty standard applied to two things. the first near certainty that this was an al qaeda compound that was used by al qaeda leaders that turned out to be true. that assessment did turn out to be correct. the other near certainty assessment would be that no civilians would be harmed if this operation was carried out. unfortunately, tha...

From here is that these two individuals were not targeted in this specific counterterrorism operation, but we know that they were hit in this counterterrorism operation. and they were killed in this counterterrorism operation because they were leaders of al qaeda and we know al qaeda is an organization that is actively plotting and planning against the united states. >> is it legal under the guidelines that this administration put in place, is it legal to kill american citizens who do not repres...

Opportunity for someone to take an independent look at this particular operation and also offer up recommendations for changes that could be made that could do more to prevent these kinds of again, tragic unintended consequences from occurring in the future. >> lastly on this issue of reviewing what happened. theres been a flurry of statements this morning from members of congress you know not only joining the president and offering condolences, but promising rigorous oversight from some of the ...

February? i mean give us a sense of the time when that happened. >> i would say that in the weeks after the strike there were and in the weeks after the operation, there were there started to be some intelligence that indicated the possible death of dr. weinstein. and it was in the course of following up on those intelligence leads and developing intelligence from a wide variety of sources that the intelligence community was able to assess with high confidence that dr. weinstein had been killed....

And that policy was in place in the course of our efforts to try to secure the rescue of dr. weinstein. and, again, this is a policy that particularly to the weinstein family is a very difficult one. and i think, frankly, i think its a pretty difficult policy even for just the average human being. but the analysis is a reasonable one. which is that to engage in the practice of negotiating with terrorist groups to try to secure the release of innocent americans would only put at risk more innocen...