Tag: secrecy

Yet more drone secrets

Chris Cole

“What is needed is a clear understanding of the issues involved so that informed decisions can be made.”
The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, MoD 2011

In 2011 the MoD published its policy document on the use of armed unmanned aircraft systems, commonly known as drones.  Exploring some of the moral, ethical and legal issues, the document accepted that there were serious issues with the use of armed drones, not least the growing autonomy and the fact that drones may simply “make war more likely.”  While arguing that these concerns “must be” tempered” by the fact that drones “prevents the potential loss of aircrew lives,” the document went on to call for a proper debate on the issues and argued “what is needed is a clear understanding of the issues involved so that informed decisions can be made.”

In the two years since that document was written, the development and use of armed drones has continued to grow.  There have now been more than 350 British drones strikes in Afghanistan and the number of British armed Reaper drones in service is about to double.  Work to increase the autonomy of drones has also continued and earlier this week BAE Systems announced that its experimental autonomous combat drone, Taranis, will make its first flight sometime in the next couple of months.

Researchers, campaigners and MPs trying to get to grips with the implications of the growing use of drones however are being constantly frustrated by the secrecy surrounding their use. Despite the MoDs call for more informed debate, requests for information are being refused point-blank.   The latest example was the refusal yesterday (17th Jan) of MoD Minister Philip Dunne to answer a question about the accuracy of British drone strikes from Tom Watson.

tom-watson-pqDrone strikes are constantly reported as being “pinpoint accurate”  – the phrase has almost become a cliché – yet there are serious questions about the accuracy of Hellfire missiles.

The accuracy of each  missile or bomb is measured by its  ‘Circular Error Probability’ – that is the dimension of a circle of which 50% of missiles or bombs will hit.  In the case of the GBU-12  laser guided bomb, the CEP is 6 metres in good weather  – hardly ‘pinpoint’.  The CEP of Hellfire is not public as far as we know.

While the MoD’s 2011 policy document on drones calls for better understanding , we know from a 2011 internal MoD briefing  the MoD has also stressed the need for a “communication strategy” to win over public opinion in support of armed drones.  When  occasional piece of information are provided by the MoD we have to decide whether it is objective, or if it is primarily part of a ‘communication strategy’ meant to persuade us of the efficacy of using armed drones. And what’s worse,  it appears that part of this persuasion strategy is simply not to reveal information that may put the use of drones in a bad light.

Over the past few years we have seen plenty of examples of the disastrous consequences when certain groups claim the privilege of exemption from scrutiny and accountability  – bankers and their  profligate ‘sub-prime’ loans policy, MPs and their expenses, being just two that jump to mind.

The MoD’s culture of secrecy and its refusal to accept scrutiny and public accountability is another disaster waiting to happen.  It is not enough for the MoD to write about the need  for public debate and understanding in policy documents on the one hand,  and then refuse information to allow such understanding on the other.  There is a great deal of public interest in the use of armed drones and the MoD must release information that would allow such debate and understanding to happen.

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To sign Drone Campaign Network’s petition calling for an end to secrecy surrounding  UK use of drones click here

UK Defence Select Committee to investigate use of armed drones

Chris Cole

The Times is today reporting that the UK Defence Select Committee is to hold an inquiry into the use of armed drones:

Members of the Commons Defence Select Committee are to investigate the deployment of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Afghanistan as part of a two-year inquiry into the use of lethal force, The Times has learned.  MPs and peers may also hold a joint debate on Britain’s drone policy and the ethics of killing targets remotely.  In addition ministers face calls to reveal whether they share British intelligence with the US to help CIA-operated drones to kill terror suspects in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Read more →

David Cameron: End the secrecy surrounding the use of British drones!

Chris Cole

Drone Campaign Network launch new petition

Drone Wars UK is a member of the Drone Camapign Network, an network of NGO’s and local  groups in the UK campaigning on the use of drones.   The network has launched a new campaign to end the secrecy surround the British use of drones in Afghanistan.   Here’s more detail: 

Since June 2008, UK forces have carried out around 300 airstrikes in Afghanistan using armed unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly known as drones), controlled from thousands of miles away. Although there is some public information about US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, there is almost no public information about drone strikes carried out by the UK in Afghanistan. Read more →

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?

‘An Unmanned Combat Air Systems Concept of Use’ : A case study in drone secrecy

Chris Cole
Click image to download document

A little over a year ago I discovered someone in the MoD had written a document called ‘An Unmanned Combat Air Systems Concept of Use’. It was mentioned in Defence Reporter, a useful bi-annual bulletin on research being carried out by the MoD’s science and technology labs. The summary said the document:

“aims to provide a broad outline of how it is envisioned that an Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) will be employed both in preparation for, and when operationally deployed from 2020 and beyond. It provides a vision of a potential UCAS, from which questions will naturally be generated, possibilities assessed and conclusions drawn. These questions, analysis and conclusions will help build the UK’s knowledge of a UCAS and therefore enhance our aptitude towards making future procurement decisions with regard to the utility of UCAS in any future force mix.”

Naturally as someone very interested in the development of British combat drones it is a document I would find extremely useful. As the bulletin is aimed at journalists and academics as well as the defence industry I duly applied to the MoD’s Knowledge and Information Services unit for a copy. After a couple of months back and forth about why I wanted the document, my request was refused.

I requested a copy of the document under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) last summer and was again refused. I appealed this refusal (a process that is suppose to take no more than 40 days at the extreme) and now almost seven months later, have received a heavily redacted copy of the document (click image above) together with a long letter setting out all the reasons it has been so heavily redacted.

The letter acknowledges that “disclosure of information from the UCAS CONUSE document would demonstrate openness and improve public understanding on the development and employment of a potential UAS … would also increase confidence in the military’s responsible current and future use of UAS, in particular help to allay concerns that the deployment of UAS are carried out in accordance with International Law…” Release of the full document however has been refused as it would “increase the security threat to our own forces and those of our allies.” (The full letter is here.)

Apart from one or two paragraphs the document is almost entirely redacted. Information that ‘would increase our confidence about current and future use’ of drones has been removed along with almost everything else.

A couple of days ago someone commented here on the blog to the effect that the public has no right to comment on or have oversight of the development of new weapon systems as they do not know enough about it. Only the professionals and experts with inside knowledge are capable of having oversight and control it seems. Alas, of course the same was said about the banking/financial system until its recent virtual collapse…

It is imperative that there is proper, public accountability and control over the actions of our armed forces and the development of new weapon systems. We will continue to challenge the secrecy that surrounds the development and use of British drones.

The search for truth in the war over drones

Chris Cole

An ‘opinion’ piece’ for Defence Management Journal I was asked to write this week:  

The news this week that four Afghan civilians had been killed and two injured in a British Reaper UAV strike has sparked the latest skirmish in the battle for and against the use of unmanned weapons systems.  I am one of those who are extremely concerned about the use of ‘drones’ as they are commonly known, and it was my Freedom of Information request, in part, that led to the revelation of civilian deaths as reported by The Guardian.

Many people around the world are extremely  troubled by the growing use of unmanned systems to launch attacks at great distances. Traditionally, one of the key restraints on warfare has been the risk to one’s own forces and, as the MoD themselves admit in a recent publication, if this restraint is taken away, unmanned systems may make war more likely.  The way that unmanned drones have enabled a huge increase in targeted killing is also causing deep disquiet amongst legal experts and scholars.  Of particular concern is the way that the CIA is using such unmanned systems to undertake extrajudicial killings in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia – countries against which war has not been declared.

However, perhaps the greatest concern relates to what is seen as one of the most important capabilities or characteristics of UAVs – their ability to loiter over an area for hours or even days. Evidence is beginning to emerge from Pakistan, that it is the persistent presence of UAVs sitting over remote villages and towns simply looking for ‘targets of opportunity’ that may be leading to civilian casualties.

Despite growing public concern, the UK is to double the number of armed Reapers in operation by 2013 and is also pressing ahead with plans to develop a ‘sovereign’ armed UAV in conjunction with France.  A recent internal briefing on Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS), as the British military prefer these systems to be called, stresses the need for the MoD to develop a “communication strategy” to win over public opinion in support of armed drones.  As part of such a strategy, MoD Air Staff officer Wing Commander Chris Thirtle, the leading RAF staff officer working on the weapon system, urges the MoD to “stress the equivalence of  RPAS to traditional combat aircraft.”

I am all for greater and better MoD communication in relation to both the wider strategic policy of using Reapers and their day to day use. What worries me however is that MoD seem not to have gone into the business of communication,  but rather into the business of persuasion, more commonly known these days as ‘spin’.  Rather than relating impartial information on the use of drones which would enable decision makers and the public to make up their minds carefully, we now have to decide if occasional piece of information provided by the MoD about Reapers is objective, or if it is primarily part of a ‘communication strategy’ meant to persuade us of the efficacy of using armed drones.

Equally worrying is the fact that when non-classified MoD material about Reapers, which does not fit in with the approved narrative, is brought to the public’s attention it is suddenly withdrawn or simply disappears.  When the Guardian revealed that the MoD’s Joint Doctrine Note, ‘The UK Approach to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’ suggested there were legitimate legal, moral and ethical issues with unmanned systems, the document was withdrawn from the MoD website, only returning to public view months later.  More recently, I publicised on my website the MoD’s Current Issues Briefing on RPAS,  which reveals the existence of the Reaper communication strategy. It too has disappeared from the MoD website (apparently along with all the other Current Issue Briefings). Should the MoD really be involved in manipulating unclassified information
in this way?

There are several ‘fronts’ in the on-going war over whether it is acceptable to use armed drones. Does the geographic and psychological distance between the operator and target make a positive or negative difference?  Does using unmanned systems mean attacks happen more often?  Does the supposed accuracy of drone sensors and cameras mean that commanders are more willing to undertake ‘riskier’ strikes (in terms of possible civilian casualties) than they would previously have undertaken? All of these questions and many more need to be debated openly and honesty and require careful analysis and clear-headed judgement based on the available evidence. Unfortunately, that evidence, is being kept strictly under wraps.

While it may be necessary to keep some information secret, I do not believe it is appropriate, or legitimate to simply refuse to disclose any and all information about the circumstances of the use of Reapers over the past three years.  There is, at the very least, the sense that public discussion is being manipulated.  With the use of armed drones only set to increase, we need a serious, public – and fully informed – debate on all  these issues.