The government had said this year that it meant to make the guidance public as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Advertisement
Ned Price, a National Security Council spokesman, said in a statement Saturday, “The president has emphasized that the us government should be as transparent as possible with the American people about our counterterrorism operations, the manner in which they are conducted and their results”.
“Our counter-terrorism actions are effective and legal, and their legitimacy is best demonstrated by making public more information about these actions as well as setting clear standards for other nations to follow”, he added.
Through the end of 2015, US officials said, American forces launched 473 strikes, mostly with drones, that killed roughly 2,400 to 2,600 terrorist “combatants”.
The 18-page Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG), published Saturday by the American Civil Liberties Union, provides more details than the government had previously revealed on how drone strikes are approved. But that disclosure lacked detail.
The release of the documents was welcomed by the ACLU’s deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer.
“The release of the PPG and related documents is also a timely reminder of the breadth of the powers that will soon be in the hands of another president”, he added. It details the “nominations” process for targeting individuals to be killed or captured in countries where the USA has not declared war. The paper also describes governmental procedures for carrying out “after action reports” to assess the aftermath of lethal and capture operations.
“The conditions precedent for any operation, which shall include at a minimum …”
The Presidential Policy Guidance also seeks a “near certainty” reassurances that civilians will not get killed or injured while hunting down a specific target.
A plan to go after terrorism targets must undergo a legal review by the agency that will conduct the operation, and then it goes to the members of the National Security Council before being presented to the president for his decision.
The playbook also stipulates that all operational plans “shall be presented to the president for decision” when there is lack of consensus or the designated target is a U.S. citizen. At least eight Americans have been killed by drone attacks, but only one – Anwar Awlaki, an Al Qaeda leader in Yemen – was specifically targeted.
Officials claimed anywhere from 64 to 116 civilians were killed in the strikes, and up to 2,581 combatants – but critics have constantly said the government underestimates civilian deaths.
But Jaffer said questions remain about where the guidance applies, whether Obama has waived its requirements in particular instances, and how the “relatively stringent standards can be reconciled with the accounts of eyewitnesses, journalists and human rights researchers who have documented large numbers of bystander casualties”.
Obama govt releases redacted version of drone strikes was posted in World of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 07, 2016 and was last updated on August 07, 2016.
The policy calls for an annual review of individuals whom the USA government has authorized for possible lethal action “to evaluate whether the intelligence continues to support a determination that the individuals (word redacted) qualify for lethal action”.
The release joins the disclosure last month of previously classified statistics showing the government’s official count of the number of combatants and civilian bystanders killed in airstrikes where US troops are not engaged in regular combat. It also receives written assessments of the results of each strike.
It was an unprecedented admission.
Naureen Shah, Amnesty International’s US director for security and human rights, also welcomed the documents but said more was needed to ensure the policy was followed.
Advertisement
In 2013, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said information he had gathered indicated U.S. drone strikes had killed 4,700 people.
