Brian Williams - Predators

Hunting for lower-level operatives was not the only trend that began at this time. According to the media sources available for 2009, in total as many as 527 militants and terrorists were killed at a collateral damage cost of forty civilians (and twenty-four unknown). This meant that for the year 2009 roughly 7 percent of those who were killed in the drone campaign were listed by the media as “civilians.” The following list is a breakdown of the drone strikes of 2009 with sources from the Pakistani and Western media that led to this startling conclusion:

1. January 1, S. Waziristan, five terrorists killed, no civilians 23

2. January 2, S. Waziristan, four unknowns killed 24

3. January 23, N. Waziristan, ten militants (four of them foreigners) killed 25

4. January 23, S. Waziristan, one Taliban, four civilians killed 26

5. February 14, S. Waziristan, twenty-five militants killed (among them Arab and Uzbek fighters), no civilians reported killed 27

6. February 16, Kurram Agency, thirty-one people killed at a “militant hideout,” described as a “camp of Afghan Commander Bahram Khan Koch” (presumed militants) 28

7. March 1, S. Waziristan, eight militants killed, no civilians 29

8. March 12, Kurram Agency, twenty-two militants killed, no civilians 30

9. March 15, Bannu, North-West Frontier Province, five militants killed (including two Arabs), no civilians 31

10. March 25, S. Waziristan, eight “foreign militants” killed in a convoy, no civilians 32

11. March 26, N. Waziristan, four unknowns killed 33

12. April 1, Orakzai Agency, fourteen Taliban and al Qaeda members killed, no civilians 34

13. April 4, N. Waziristan, four to ten militants (including foreigners) killed, seven foreign women and children also reported killed 35

14. April 8, S. Waziristan, three to four militants killed, no civilians 36

15. April 19, S. Waziristan, three to seven militants killed, no civilians 37

16. April 29, S. Waziristan, approximately four Taliban militants and two unknowns killed 38

17. May 9, S. Waziristan, ten Taliban killed, no civilians 39

18. May 12, S. Waziristan, eight foreigners and local Taliban killed, no civilians 40

19. May 16, N. Waziristan, eight local militants and two Arabs killed, no civilians 41

20. June 14, S. Waziristan, five militants killed, no civilians 42

21. June 18, S. Waziristan, nine Taliban fighters killed, no civilians 43

22. June 18, S. Waziristan, five killed at “hideout of Taliban commander Mullah Nazir” 44

23. June 23, S. Waziristan, six militants killed, no civilians 45

24. June 23, S. Waziristan, as many as seventy killed at a funeral, including eighteen civilians and approximately fifty-two described as “militants” 46

25. July 3, S. Waziristan, thirteen militants killed, no civilians 47

26. July 7, S. Waziristan, sixteen militants killed, no civilians 48

27. July 8, S. Waziristan, fifty suspected militants killed, no civilians 49

28. July 8, S. Waziristan, seventeen militants killed, no civilians 50

29. July 11, S. Waziristan, eight Taliban killed, no civilians 51

30. July 17, N. Waziristan, five Taliban killed, no civilians 52

31. August 5, S. Waziristan, one to three Taliban (Baitullah Mehsud and his guards) and one civilian (his wife) killed

32. August 11, S. Waziristan, twelve extremists killed, no civilians 53

33. August 21, N. Waziristan, twelve unknowns killed 54

34. August 27, S. Waziristan, eight militants killed, no civilians 55

35. September 7, N. Waziristan, five fighters killed, no civilians reported killed 56

36. September 8, N. Waziristan, eight militants killed, no civilians 57

37. September 14, N. Waziristan, four foreign militants and four unknowns killed 58

38. September 24, N. Waziristan, twelve Afghan Taliban militants killed, no civilians 59

39. September 29, S. Waziristan, five suspected Taliban killed, no civilians 60

40. September 29, N. Waziristan, seven unknowns killed 61

41. September 29, Khyber Agency, no deaths 62

42. September 30, N. Waziristan, eight militants killed, no civilians 63

43. October 15, N. Waziristan, four suspected militants killed, no civilians 64

44. October 24, Bajaur Agency, twenty-two terrorists killed, no civilians 65

45. November 4, N. Waziristan, four unknowns killed 66

46. November 18, N. Waziristan, four militants killed, no civilians 67

47. November 20, N. Waziristan, eight militants killed, no civilians 68

48. December 7, N. Waziristan, three militants killed, no civilians 69

49. December 8, N. Waziristan, three unknowns killed 70

50. December 17, N. Waziristan, two militants killed, no civilians 71

51. December 17, N. Waziristan, twelve suspected Taliban militants killed, no civilians 72

52. December 18, N. Waziristan, eight Taliban killed, no civilians 73

53. December 26, N. Waziristan, thirteen militants killed, no civilians 74

54. December 31, N. Waziristan, three militants killed, no civilians 75

Although it is based on news service reports (usually informed by local Pakistani sources), the preceding list helps explain why Obama, a president who was trying to improve America’s frayed, post–Iraq invasion image among Muslims, continued the unpopular drone strikes. Simply put, he had to have known that the CIA was waging perhaps the most precise bombing (or, more accurately, “guided-missile”) campaign in world history. Clearly the combination of high-resolution optics and spies on the ground was working to minimize civilian casualties, even as hundreds of militants and terrorists were killed with surgical precision. Many of those who were killed were involved in mass-casualty terrorism plots that would have taken the lives of many more civilians had the plotters not been killed. Certainly, Obama and the CIA felt they were saving civilian lives by killing those who murdered innocents in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Africa, and the West. The bad public relations fallout in Pakistan and the blowback of hatred for America among families of slain militants and the few slain civilians was apparently worth it.

Thus, the Obama administration made several attempts to change the widely held perception that the drones were killing predominantly civilians. One U.S. official, for example, described the drones’ much vaunted accuracy in the following exaggerated terms:

In the past year, in the neighborhood of 600 militants—including more than two dozen terrorist leaders—have been taken off the battlefield. In the same period we can’t confirm any noncombatant casualties. This is a weapon—fuelled by good intelligence—that allows us to counter an urgent and deadly threat in otherwise inaccessible places. And it’s far more precise than conventional ground operations. What’s the alternative to this kind of rigor, assuming the United States and its allies are unwilling to allow al-Qaeda and its friends to plot and murder freely? 76

Another U.S. official similarly claimed that the CIA had killed two thousand militants and just fifty noncombatants in the period of 2001–2011 (i.e., a ratio of 2.5 percent civilian deaths). 77On a separate occasion Deputy Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan emphatically stated,

One of the things President Obama has insisted on is that we’re exceptionally precise and surgical in terms of addressing the terrorist threat. And by that I mean, if there are terrorists who are within an area where there are women and children or others, you know, we do not take such action that might put those innocent men, women and children in danger. In fact I can say that the types of operations that the US has been involved in, in the counter-terrorism realm, that nearly for the past year there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop. 78