Brian Williams - Predators

10. Salman Masood, “Video of Flogging Rattles Pakistan,” New York Times , April 4, 2009. For the unbearably gruesome videos of the beheadings see “Video: Taliban Slaughter Pakistani Police and Residents Like Animals,” Islamization Watch (blog), April 22, 2009, http://islamizationwatch.blogspot.com/2009/04/video-taliban-slaughter-pakistani.html.

11. “High-Profile Victories in the Battle against Terror,” Sunday Times (London), August 9, 2009.

12. “Profile: Hakimullah Mehsud,” BBC News, May 3, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8219223.stm.

13. Imtiaz Gul, The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier (New York: Viking, 2010), 15.

14. “Taleban, We Will Launch an Attack in Washington That Will Amaze Everyone in the World,” Sunday Times , April 1, 2009.

15. Bill Roggio and Alexander Mayer, “Charting the Data for US Airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004–2011,” Long War Journal , http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php(accessed in December 2011).

16. Bill Roggio, “Scores of Taliban Killed in Second US Strike in South Waziristan,” Long War Journal , June 23, 2009, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/06/seventeen_taliban_ki.php.

17. Nick Schifrin, “Near Miss: CIA Drone Almost Hits Taliban Chief in Pakistan,” ABC News, June 26, 2009, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/International/story?id=7939317.

18. “Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud Escapes U.S Missile Strike,” Trends Updates , June 24, 2009.

19. “US Drone Kills Scores of People in Tribal Zone,” Times (London), June 25, 2009.

20. “Missile Attack Kills Fifty in South Waziristan,” Dawn , June 24, 2009.

21. Nick Schifrin, “CIA Drone Strike Kills Wife of Pakistani Taliban Chief,” ABC News, August 5, 2009, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8258637&page=1.

22. Ismail Khan, “Good Riddance, Killer Baitullah,” Dawn , August 8, 2009.

23. Ibid.

24. “Baitullah Mehsud Dead,” Paklinks.com, August 6, 2009, http://www.paklinks.com/gs/pakistan-affairs/339128-baitullah-mehsud-dead.html.

25. “Taleban Commander Baitullah Mehsud Killed in US Missile Strike,” Times , August 8, 2009.

26. Jane Mayer, “The Predator War: What Are the Risks of the C.I.A.’s Covert Drone Program?” New Yorker , October 26, 2009.

27. Ishtiaq Mahsud, “New Pakistani Taliban Leader Vows Revenge,” SFGate , October 6, 2009, http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/New-Pakistani-Taliban-leader-vows-revenge-3284609.php.

28. “New Taliban Leader Vows to Carry on War,” Sky News , September 18, 2009, http://news.sky.com/story/725368/new-taliban-leader-vows-to-carry-on-war.

29. “Pakistan Taliban Says Leader Injured in Attack,” CNN, January 15, 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/15/pakistan.taliban/index.html.

1. Mary Anne Weaver, Pakistan: Deep Inside the World’s Most Frightening State (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 69.

2. “Pakistan Air Force/Pakistan Fiza’ya,” http://www.f-16.net/f-16_users_article14.html(accessed on January 27, 2011).

3. “The Pakistani US Relationship,” Defense Journal , April 1998.

4. “Frenemies,” Newsweek , May 23, 2011.

5. Peter Bergen, Holy War Inc . (New York: Touchstone, 2001), 73.

6. The Pashtuns make up about 40 percent of Afghanistan.

7 . “CIA Tried to Have Bin Laden Killed,” New York Times , September 30, 2001.

8. “Officials: U.S. Missed Chance to Kill Bin Laden,” Associated Press, June 23, 2003.

9. Daniel Schorr, “Reviewing the Presidential Ban on Assassinations,” National Public Radio, September 17, 2001, http://www.npr.org/news/specials/americatransformed/essays/010917.schorrcommentary.html.

1. Bill Yenne, Birds of Prey: Predators, Reapers and America’s Newest UAVs in Combat (North Branch, MN: Specialty Books, 2010), 15.

2. Linda D. Kozaryn, “Predators Bound for Bosnia,” American Forces Press Service, U.S. Department of Defense, February 8, 1996, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=40516.

3. Michael R. Thirtle, Robert Johnson, and John Birkler, The Predator ACTD: A Case Study for Transition Planning to the Formal Acquisition Process (Washington, DC: Rand, 1997), 24–25.

4. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2005), 529.

5. Ibid.

6. Norman Polmar, The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), 479.

7. Yenne, Birds of Prey , 43.

8. Peter Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 33.

9. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 189–90.

10. David Ensor, “Drone May Have Spotted Bin Laden in 2000,” CNN, March 17, 2004, http://articles.cnn.com/2004-03-17/world/predator.video_1_bin-senior-al-predator-drone-aircraft; George Tenet, Written Statement for the Record of the Director of Central Intelligence before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States , March 24, 2004, 15, http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing8/tenet_statement.pdf.

11. Klaus Brinkbaumer and John Goetz, “Obama’s Shadowy Drone War,” Der Spiegel , October 12, 2010.

12. Ibid.

13. Walter Boyne, “How the Predator Grew Teeth,” Air Force Magazine 92, no. 7 (July 2009): 2–17.

14. Yenne, Birds of Prey , 45.

15. Ted Bridis, “Officials: U.S. Slow on Bin Laden Drones,” Associated Press, June 24, 2003.

16. Barton Gellman, “A Strategy’s Cautious Evolution,” Washington Post , January 20, 2002.

17. “Officials: U.S. Missed Chance to Kill Bin Laden,” Associated Press, June 23, 2003.

18. Ibid.

19. Scott Shane, “CIA to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan,” New York Times , December 3, 2009.

20. Coll, Ghost Wars , 581.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, 9/11 Commission Report , chap. 6, 210–14, for a discussion of this debate.

24. George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 143.

25. Mayer, “Predator War.”

26. Avery Plaw, Targeting Terrorists: A License to Kill? (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 2, 117, 119–20, 210.

27. “Officials: U.S. Missed Chance.”

28. Singer, Wired for War , 35.

1. Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 23.

2. Bob Woodward and Dan Baltz, “Combating Terrorism: ‘It Starts Today,’” Washington Post , February 1, 2002.

3. “Bring Me the Head of Bin Laden,” BBC News, May 4, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4511943.stm.

4. “The Yemen Strike: The War on Terror Goes Global,” Chicago Tribune , November 24, 2002.

5. Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign against Al Qaeda (New York: Times Books, 2011), 4.

6. “CIA Gets New Powers to Eliminate Bin Laden as UAVs Get Armed,” Agence France-Presse, October 21, 2001.