Obama Poised to Take Drones Out of CIA Hands - Pentagon to Take Over Targeted Killings

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The Daily Beast ‏@thedailybeast 36m

#Breaking: Senior officials say the Obama administration is poised to shift the CIA's drone program to the Pentagon http://thebea.st/YFgEAN


Three senior officials tell Daniel Klaidman that the Obama administration is poised to shift the CIA’s drone program to the Pentagon.

At a time when controversy over the Obama administration’s drone program seems to be cresting, the CIA is close to taking a major step toward getting out of the targeted killing business. Three senior U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast that the White House is poised to sign off on a plan to shift the CIA’s lethal targeting program to the Defense Department.

The move could potentially toughen the criteria for drone strikes, strengthen the program’s accountability, and increase transparency. Currently, the government maintains parallel drone programs, one housed in the CIA and the other run by DOD. The proposed plan would unify the command and control structure of targeted killings, and create a uniform set of rules and procedures. The CIA would maintain a role, but the military would have operational control over targeting. Lethal missions would take place under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which governs military operations, rather than Title 50, which sets out the legal authorities for intelligence activities and covert operations. “This is a big deal,” says one senior administration official who has been briefed on the plan. “It would be a pretty strong statement.”

Officials anticipate a phased-in transition in which the CIA’s drone operations would be gradually shifted over to the military, a process that could take as little as a year. Others say it might take longer but would occur during President Obama’s second term. “You can’t just flip a switch, but it’s on a reasonably fast track,” says one U.S. official. During that time, CIA and DOD operators would begin to work more closely together to ensure a smooth hand-off. The CIA would remain involved in lethal targeting, at least on the intelligence side, but would not actually control the unmanned aerial vehicles. Officials told The Daily Beast that a potential downside of the Agency relinquishing control of the program was the loss of a decade of expertise that the CIA has developed since it has been prosecuting its war in Pakistan and beyond. At least for a period of transition, CIA operators would likely work alongside their military counterparts to target suspected terrorists.

The policy shift is part of a larger White House initiative known internally as “institutionalization,” an effort to set clear standards and procedures for lethal operations. More than a year in the works, the interagency process has been driven and led by John Brennan, who until he became CIA director earlier this month was Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser. Brennan, who has presided over the administration’s drone program from almost day one of Obama’s presidency, has grown uncomfortable with the ad hoc and sometimes shifting rules that have governed it. Moreover, Brennan has publicly stated that he would like to see the CIA move away from the kinds of paramilitary operations it began after the September 11 attacks, and return to its more traditional role of gathering and analyzing intelligence.



read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/19/exclusive-no-more-drones-for-cia.html

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1. "Institutionalization" - interesting term. Pretty much describes what this Adminstration does,

in general. Institutions are preserved. Accountability comes second.

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3. however, this 'institutionalization' will actually increase 'accountability'

. . . that's not an endorsement of any of it - just an observation.

The drone program was actually institutionalized into the CIA arsenal by Donald Rumsfeld. This is a shift away from that; for better or worse, fwiw in the end.

I'd agree with the notion that this move goes a ways in codifying the practice, although it remains to be see what Congress or even the courts do to the military's ability to 'target' suspects for these summary executions.

[sabrina 1]

2. And I thought we always had 'clear standards' for lethal operations. Which is why I kept

objecting to the slaughter of innocents by drone, or even those we are told are 'terrorists' without any 'clear standards' which could stand up under scrutiny. But whenever I and others tried to speak out against these rogue operations going around the world killing people in our name, I was told I was wrong.

But here, even the man, Brennan, who supported torture, has finally realized that the monster they unleashed is out of control:

The policy shift is part of a larger White House initiative known internally as “institutionalization,” an effort to set clear standards and procedures for lethal operations. More than a year in the works, the interagency process has been driven and led by John Brennan, who until he became CIA director earlier this month was Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser. Brennan, who has presided over the administration’s drone program from almost day one of Obama’s presidency, has grown uncomfortable with the ad hoc and sometimes shifting rules that have governed it. Moreover, Brennan has publicly stated that he would like to see the CIA move away from the kinds of paramilitary operations it began after the September 11 attacks, and return to its more traditional role of gathering and analyzing intelligence.

Why was an unelected organization like the CIA and we know that they use Blackwater criminals to do a lot of their dirty work, ever allowed to have this much power?

I hope there will be some thorough investigations and some justice for the victims of these murderous policies. Or will we just ignore the pleas of the victims again and move forward.

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4. Implausible Denial

Implausible Denial: The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, or OUSD(I) in Pentagonese, was originally conceived by Rumsfeld as a centralizing measure, a way to give him "one dog to kick" rather than a "whole kennel" of individual civilian and uniformed defense intelligence agencies.

read more: http://www.thenation.com/article/implausible-denial


my take: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022407705

Bush's defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. actually formed his own private army and intelligence branch with its own funding.

from the Washington Post, Jan. 2005 (Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld's Domain
New Espionage Branch Delving Into CIA Territory):

The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Rumsfeld's ambitious plans rely principally on the Tampa-based U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, and on its clandestine component, the Joint Special Operations Command. Rumsfeld has designated SOCOM's leader, Army Gen. Bryan D. Brown, as the military commander in chief in the war on terrorism. He has also given Brown's subordinates new authority to pay foreign agents. The Strategic Support Branch is intended to add missing capabilities -- such as the skill to establish local spy networks and the technology for direct access to national intelligence databases -- to the military's much larger special operations squadrons. Some Pentagon officials refer to the combined units as the "secret army of Northern Virginia."

Known as "special mission units," Brown's elite forces are not acknowledged publicly. They include two squadrons of an Army unit popularly known as Delta Force, another Army squadron -- formerly code-named Gray Fox -- that specializes in close-in electronic surveillance, an Air Force human intelligence unit and the Navy unit popularly known as SEAL Team Six.

. . . In pursuit of those aims, Rumsfeld is laying claim to greater independence of action as Congress seeks to subordinate the 15 U.S. intelligence departments and agencies -- most under Rumsfeld's control -- to the newly created and still unfilled position of national intelligence director. For months, Rumsfeld opposed the intelligence reorganization bill that created the position. He withdrew his objections late last year after House Republican leaders inserted language that he interprets as preserving much of the department's autonomy.



The money came from within the defense budget, easy to approve a lot of it hidden under the guise of national security. Rumsfeld wanted forces that are easily deployed, don't need big, public allocations (or a fanfare of pre-approval) from Congress, and are able to carry on several covert or clandestine missions at once. This meshed with Bush's shuffle of the Pentagon succession line to elevate the new intelligence office over the traditional branches of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The new intelligence office was headed by Rumsfeld's neocon buddy, Stephen Cambone. No need to trouble us while they raped the treasury to wage their wars for greed and conquest.

-Geek Wars-

Most disturbing in the prosecution of these undercover wars was the increased reliance on 'predator' drones to launch missile attacks on hideouts and vehicles where 'intelligence' claims there is a target of terror. The Bush-era Air Force codified into their regular military arsenal, the MQ-1 Predator, long-range, medium-altitude, remotely piloted aircraft as a 'Joint Forces Air Component Commander-owned theater asset for reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition in support of the Joint Forces commander'.

The drones were equipped with two laser-guided Hellfire anti-tank missiles; originally intended for use in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The change in designation from an intelligence tool to an offensive one occurred in 2002 with the addition of the armed reconnaissance role. Bush's CIA's Tenet approved the use of the armed drones right after the 9-11 attacks. In fact, targeting of bin-Laden by the CIA using the drones was approved by President Clinton.

However, even Tenet resisted the call to use the drones to carry out attacks. He thought the authority to wage armed aggression was the job of the military, not the CIA. Nonetheless, security insiders supported the militarization of the drone -- like our erstwhile hero, Richard Clarke, who wrote in a memo to Rice criticizing Tenet for impeding the deployment of unmanned Predator drones to hunt for bin Laden. According to the Washington Post, the memo urged “officials to imagine a day when hundreds of Americans lay dead from a terrorist attack and ask themselves what more they could have done.”

Who wouldn't get behind the prospect of striking down the nation's #1 enemy with a precision-guided tool operated from a safe distance, without the mess of dead U.S. servicefolks to muck up the approval of a shellshocked public? And what of those innocents who happen to be in the way of our missiles? Well, 'they're with us, or against us'.

more: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022407705

[sabrina 1]

5. First, I am glad to see that finally even someone like Brennan has begun to realize how wrong

and dangerous these outlaw tactics were. Too bad he only began to do so when it has become apparent that other countries can now do what we do, maybe even aim one of these deadly, cowardly weapons at a shopping mall in the US.

What is so apparent and disturbing is that we have extremely stupid, immoral, unethical people being elected and appointed to powerful positions that determine who lives and who dies in this country.

Even more disturbing is that while Bush was in office and we first learned about these weaponized drones he wanted to use, the Left was appalled and spoke out against them. But when the program escalated under Obama, some on the Left tried to make arguments FOR them.

What I have learned, sadly over the past decade is that partisanship, as Jefferson et al once observed, is a very dangerous thing. Those drones were wrong when Bush introduced and they remained wrong when Obama continued and against all the demands to stop their use from around the world, escalated their use. That was just plain WRONG! A lot of people have died, many of them children, over the past five years. Nothing can now change that.

Frankly I am sick of 'politics'. I am sick of the worst crimes against humanity being excused and ignored based on who is committing and/or condoning them. When something is wrong it is wrong, period!

Where was our Government during all this killing in our name by these rogue elements? How did money pass into their hands without the knowledge of Congress? Democrats??? Anyone awake in DC?

I guess it's a first step to reign in our army of murderous mercenaries, but it's a bit late for those who are dead and it doesn't look like the program is being abandoned, just handed over the Pentagon, which doesn't give me much hope that it won't continue.

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6. kick