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Even the CIA's Former Drone Chief Says The Drones Are Backfiring

The Obama administration has dialed up the use of robots in the war on terror, a tool that has killed more than 1,300 militants across northwestern Pakistan in the past four years.

The Obama administration has dialed up the use of robots in the war on terror, a tool that has killed more than 1,300 militants across northwestern Pakistan in the past four years. And it's a big success, if you ask people like former CIA chief Michael Hayden. But Pakistani officials aren't convinced: they say that of the 100 drone strikes in 2010, not one killed a "high value target." (While the government officially condemns the CIA's violation of its airspace, it privately tolerates the program.) (UPDATE: The Times recently reported that the military is revamping its estimates on drone-assisted homicides in Pakistan; it had previously said innocent deaths were zero this year.)

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And on Frontline last week, Robert Grenier, a former director of counter-terrorism for the CIA who was stationed in Islamabad and in charge of the drone program in 2005 and 2006 (and who was reportedly fired because he didn't agree with torture) says that the drones are backfiring. "We have helped to bring about the situation that we most fear."

That's because, as we know, the drones – remotely flown from video-game-like consoles by pilots near Las Vegas – don't always hit the bad guys. According to a study by the Center for American Progress, since 2004 approximately 20 percent of casualties have been civilians, a number that appears to be rising. Grenier's "most feared situation" – that drones are unintentionally fomenting anti-American sentiment and bringing more militants into the fold – has been raised time and again over the years by American analysts and Pakistani officials, but it isn't the only problem with drones. When the military uses drones it's trading power for accuracy.

This was precisely why President Obama decided to hit Obama Osama with a bullet rather than a missile: you can't be sure you've killed the most wanted man in the world when all you've got to show for it is a giant crater in the ground. Not that this signals a new direction: a drone missile killed 8 suspected militants on Friday. Later, seven more bodies were recovered, but it was unclear who they were.

Connections:

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