Civilian Drone Casualties in ‘Single Digits’ Year-to-Year, Says Intel Chair - East Idaho News
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Civilian Drone Casualties in ‘Single Digits’ Year-to-Year, Says Intel Chair

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160338158?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1360298401184Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The Senate’s Intelligence Committee chair said Thursday that the number of civilians killed in America’s drone strikes each year “has typically been in the single digits.”

The chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., made the claim in her opening remarks at the Senate’s confirmation hearing for CIA Director nominee John Brennan. Brennan, currently President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, is widely described as the architect of the administration’s counter-terrorism policy, including its increased reliance on targeted drone strikes.

“I’ve…been attempting to speak publicly about the very low number of civilian casualties that result from such strikes, [but] I’ve been limited in my ability to do so,” Feinstein said. “But for the past several years, this committee has done significant oversight of the government’s conduct of targeted strikes and the figures we have obtained from the executive branch, which we have done our utmost to verify, confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes has typically been in the single digits.”

Feinstein’s assertion appears to challenge data compiled by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism from media, human rights and purported eyewitness reports, which says that American drones have killed hundreds of civilians since 2008 from Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia.

In an August 2011 report on the BIJ’s data, a senior U.S. official told ABC News that the Bureau’s statistics were “way off the mark.” At that time, the official said the U.S. government sees the battlefield “in real time” and that the total number of civilian casualties was closer to 50.

Brennan’s hearing comes two days after NBC News published a Department of Justice document that summarized the legal justification for the Obama administration to mark a U.S. citizen for death by drone strike. At least three Americans have been killed in drone strikes, including high-profile al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, as well as his 16-year-old son.

DOCUMENT: Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a US Citizen (PDF)

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