Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Drone War's Rules

Drone War's Rules: Shoot First, Ask Permission Later (Updated)

By Noah Shachtman Email
March 23, 2009 | 2:50:00 PM
Categories: Drones, Perils of Pakistan
Courtesy Of Wired Blog NetWork

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The U.S. isn't just launching killer drone attacks on targets in Pakistan, from bases on Pakistani soil. It's doing so without the individual authorization of the Pakistani government.

Before August, the CIA had to ask for Islamabad's OK before launching any attack. The approvals often took "a day or more, sometimes causing the agency to lose track of the target," the L.A. Times reports. But when Pakistani president and Bush administration ally Pervez Musharraf was forced to resign in August, Bush quickly approved "new rules: Rather than requiring Pakistan's permission to order a Predator strike, the agency was allowed to shoot first."

"We had the data all along," a former CIA official tells the paper. "Finally we took off the gloves."

"The effect was immediate, the Times adds. "There were two Predator strikes on Aug. 31, and three more by the end of the week." And dozens more, since then.

The result, American officials say, is an al-Qaeda leadership that's on the run, constantly looking over its shoulder. But Craig Mullaney, rumored to be the next Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Central Asia, wonders whether the drone strikes have been worth it.

"There are advantages to being able to strike remotely, at key leadership in Pakistan," Mullaney recently told Danger Room. "But when you pan back and look strategically: What does that do for the recruiting base of the Taliban in Pakistan, Afghanistan. What does that do for the ability of Al Qaeda to reconstitute? You're balancing the political stability of Pakistan against the military advantages of making these counter-terror strikes. I'm not sure what the answer is."

Over the weekend, new CIA chief Leon Panetta made his first overseas trip -- to South Asia, including Pakistan. The agency won't say exactly what was on his agenda there. But you can imagine.

UPDATE: "The heart of the problem for the West is in western Pakistan," U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke tells the Christian Science Monitor. "But there are not going to be US or NATO troops on the ground in Pakistan. There is a red line for the government of Pakistan, and one which we must respect." Notice he didn't say anything about robot planes.

[Photo: USAF]

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