Month: March 2012

Drones and the ‘propensity to kinetic action’

Chris Cole
Predator drone crew at Creech AFB

The concern that drones make armed attacks and military intervention more likely is often rejected by the military and the drone industry, who argue that the drone pilots are able to stand above the ‘fog and friction’ of the battlefield and to make dispassionate  and rational decisions about whether or not to use ‘kinetic force’.

This argument, however, has been torn to shreds by the release of a mass of papers detailing the US military investigation into a massacre of Afghan civilian on 21st February 2010.  Read more →

US military investigation damns drone operators

Chris Cole

We’re reposting this short report, together with the links to further information, that we have just received today:

One of the trucks after the Hellfire strike in Feb 2010

Centcom.mil released on 22 March 2012 a declassified 2,100-page report on slaughter of 23 Afghan non-combatants – men, women, children – in February 2010, blamed on Creech drone pilots over-enthusiastically calling in Hellfires on a 3-vehicle civilian convoy.

Minutely detailed descriptions are provided of how drones are directed from screeners at Centcom and pilots at Creech AFB using a battery of secure communications devices: IRC chat, radio, video, satellites, VOIP, telephone, not all of which are coordinated and supervised and thus lead to disaster.

Pilots of choppers which fired the Hellfire missiles claim drone operators cannot be trusted due to lack of contact with real world conditions on the ground and because mission controllers at Creech reward “Top Gun” aggressiveness. Read more →

Europe’s silence on US drone targeted killings

Chris Cole
The following is excerpted from a new briefing written by Nathalie Van Raemdonck of Istituto Affari Internazionali.  ‘Vested Interest or Moral Indecisiveness? Explaining the EU’s Silence on the US Targeted Killing Policy in Pakistan’ explores the US policy of targeted killing and the EU’s (lack of) response. 

Click to download full briefing

When the United States and the European Union committed to cooperating more closely in the fight against terrorism in 2004, they took special care to emphasise that they would act in keeping with the rule of law and international law.  Accordingly, the EU has an obligation in this engagement to examine those practices – including drone strikes – that raise serious concerns as to their  compatibility with international law, and to ask the US for more information about the specifics of targeted killing.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have reminded the European Commission of this obligation with parliamentary questions, requesting the EU to ask the US for the legal basis of this tactic. On 16 January 2012, a written declaration was issued by a group of MEPs urging the EU to commit to ensuring that states publish their criteria for combat drone operations, and in the event of unlawful killing, measures be taken against the perpetrators.

However, neither the European Commission in the form of the High Representative (who is also the Commission’s Vice President) nor the Council have thus far released any statements on this subject. This is striking, as the Council has been quite vocal on the matter on other occasions, notably on the targeted killings carried out by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

When confronted with this discrepancy, EU officials vaguely reply that the European Council has been in an ongoing debate with the US about how to forge a durable framework to combat terrorism within the rule of law since 2004. Yet, no opinions are expressed on the legality of the practice, and no statements have been made by EU officials on future developments. Apparently questions are being asked on the lack of transparency of this tactic, but no publicly known results have so far been shown.

It is not only the EU institutions that have failed to make their voice heard on the issue of drone strikes. The member states have generally followed a similar pattern. Nonetheless, while very few words have been uttered by individual countries, the positions of at least some EU member states can be gauged by their actions.

Germany, for instance, has been refusing to provide the US with intelligence that would lead to the killing of suspected terrorists since a 2010 drone attack in Pakistan killed a German citizen, who was an Islamist but no militant. The Germans have since agreed to provide the Americans with information “for intelligence purposes only” that can be used exclusively to arrest suspects, since the German government does not want to be perceived by the public opinion as being co-responsible for US targeted killings.

On the opposite end to Germany, one can perhaps put the United Kingdom. Although six British nationals having been killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan, the British government has continued to provide the US military and the CIA with support and intelligence. The Foreign Office has said in the past that it was “looking into the reports” of the killings, but so far none of these deaths have been investigated by UK authorities.  The UK is itself using armed drones in Afghanistan. Just like the US, the UK releases little information about the way in which these drones are used. Read more →

Drone crashes continue into 2012

Chris Cole
As the industry continues to talk up the future of the drone, there is virtual silence on drone crashes

While the drone industry regularly boasts about the spectacular rise in the use of unmanned drones (see this report of the latest drone lobby gathering as an example) their silence on the number of drones plummeting back to earth with a bang is almost deafening.

Our drone crash database contains some details of over 90 drone crashes since 2007 and we have now added details of five more large military drones that have crashed since the beginning of 2012.  We have also added details of a previously unreported US Predator drone crash in Djibouti in March 2011 which has only now been revealed by USAF military accidents reports (other drone crashes in Djibouti have previously been reported).  Of course many other smaller drones will have crashed,  but the drone crash database concentrates on the larger Class II and Class III drones)  (see here for a general guide to drone sizes) Read more →

Legal action initiated in UK as drone strikes continue in Pakistan, Yemen and Gaza

Chris Cole

It was announced yesterday that a legal proceedings will be initiated in the High Court in London to challenge British complicity in US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Reprieve together with Leigh Day & Co, acting on behalf of the family of Malik Daud Khan, one of 40 people killed in a CIA drone strike on a tribal gathering in North Waziristan in March 2011, are suing Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, William Hague over British intelligence agency support for the strikes. Richard Stein, Head of Human Rights at law firm Leigh Day & Co said:

“We believe that there is credible, unchallenged evidence that the Secretary of State is operating a policy of passing intelligence to officials or agents of the US Government; and that he considers such a policy to be “in ‘strict accordance’ with the law”. If this is the case the Secretary of State has misunderstood one or more of the principles of international law governing immunity for those involved in armed attacks on behalf of a state and/or the lawfulness of such attacks; and his policy, if implemented, involves the commission of serious criminal offences by employees of GCHQ or by other officials or agents of the UK Government in the UK.”

So far the Foreign Office has yet to respond. Meanwhile drone strikes have continued in Pakistan and elsewhere over the past weekend.

On March 9th between 8 and 12 people (reports vary) were killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan.  Yemeni officials and local witnesses also reported US drone strikes on Friday in Baydar, in the South of Yemen and again on Sunday in Jabal Khanfar. US military sources however refused to comment on these drone strikes .

At least 20 Palestinians, including a 12-year old boy have also been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza over the weekend. On Friday Israel carried out the ‘targeted killing’ of Zuhair Al-Qaissi, the leader of the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC). Two other people were also killed in what witnesses said was a drone strike although this has not been possible to confirm. Responding to the Israeli targeted killing, rockets were fired at Israel which led to further Israeli airstrikes, which are continuing.  Israeli drones are reported to be carrying out some of the airstrikes.

Transatlantic pressure for transparency on drone strikes

Chris Cole

Our post last week analysing the available information about UK drone strikes in Afghanistan was covered by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,  as well as The Daily Mail (which interestingly included criticism of some strikes by a retired British Major General) and The Independent. Perhaps surprisingly the US drone lobby group AUVSI, also highlighted our report on their twitter page

The Ministry of Defence, responding to this coverage stated on their Defence News Blog:

The drone wars website reporting on a discrepancy between RAF operational updates and the recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request is effectively comparing ‘apples and oranges’. The operational updates are a completely different product to the FOI output, offering on a weekly basis a non-repetitive summary of a wide variety of air activity deemed to be of interest to the wider public.

With this in mind there should be no surprise that there are differences in these distinctly differing products. It should be noted that the RAF operational updates have never purported to provide a comprehensive record of theatre air activity, but rather have been designed to provide a snapshot of weekly activity, with output subjective in their content.

Our report did not suggest that there was a “discrepancy”‘ between the RAF Operational Updates and the actual number of drone strikes that had taken place.  Rather we were highlighting the (little) public information on strikes that was available and again calling for more information to be made public.

By co-incidence, our request for an internal review of the MoD’s decision not to release information we requested about UK drone strikes received a response this week.   The review upheld the decision not to release information, and stated:

“There is public interest in assuring public confidence in and understanding of operational issues associated with UAV weapon launches in Afghanistan.  However, the public interest in release is outweighed by the risk to the lives of UK service personnel and those of our allies….  I find that the balance of the public interest lies strongly in withholding this information….”  (See full letter here).

We disagree that the public interest lies so strongly on the side of complete nondisclosure.  We would argue that some information could, and should, be made public about the more than 250 UK drone strikes that have now taken place.  Evidence of the lack of danger to UK service personnel come from the fact that the RAF regularly releases information about UK drone strikes.  However this information is not released in a methodical way that would allow proper public understanding and accountability.  As we have said previously, public accountability over the growing use of UK drones is not an optional extra but is a requirement of international law.  We shall be appealing to the Information commissioner.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic pressure for more transparency about drone strikes has focused on the legal justification for ‘targeted killing’ – in particular the assassination of Anwar al-Alwaki who held American citizenship –  and the Justice Department memo that apparently authorised his execution.

Responding to this pressure the US Attorney General Holder made a speech on the issue at last night at a university law school in Chicago.  The text of the speech has been helpfully made available by the lawfare blog, with their commentary on relevant passages here.

The speech did not go down well with the Washington Post which said it was “long on generalities and short on specifics” and demanded in its editorial that ‘It’s time to release the drone memo‘.

The Courthouse News Service gave a good overview of the speech and also reports that on the same day as the speech, Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Shapiro submitted a brief (in response to an ACLU suit demanding more information) that denied knowing whether a U.S. predator drone had killed al-Awlaki, though it admitted “that DOD has carried out lethal operations, including against foreign nationals, using drones and other means.”  As the courthouse News Service reports states:

That irony was not lost on the ACLU.  “If the attorney general can discuss the targeted killing program at a law school, then the administration can surely release the legal memos it uses to justify its claimed killing authority, and also defend its legal justifications in court.”

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project said in the statement. “The targeted killing program raises profound legal and moral questions that should be subjected to public debate, and constitutional questions that should be considered by the judiciary.”

Exactly.  It’s hardly rocket science is it?