Former
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested the Obama administration consider
adding a check on the president's ability to use drones to target terror
suspects.
Gates, speaking
on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, said that the United States should
consider creating a third group in charge of informing Congress and intelligence
communities about an imminent drone strike.
"And so I think
-- I think this idea of being able to execute, in effect, an American citizen,
no matter how awful, having some third party being ... having a say in it or
perhaps some -- informing the Congress or the intelligence committees or
something like that ... I think some check on the ability of the president to do
this has merit, as we look to the longer term future," Gates
said.
Gates, who
served as Defense secretary for both then-President George W. Bush and President
Obama, suggested a court in charge of oversight for drone strikes or perhaps a
panel of judges should be given consideration.
"Something
similar, whether it's a panel of three judges or one judge or some -- something
that would give the American people confidence that there was, in fact, a
compelling case to be -- to launch an attack against an American citizen, I
think just as an independent confirmation or affirmation, if you will, is
something worth giving serious consideration to," Gates also
said.
But Gates added
that his suggestion of an oversight panel for drone strikes was not because of
abuse by the Obama administration.
"I think that
the rules and the— and the practices that the Obama administration has followed
are quite stringent and are not being abused," Gates said. "But who is to say
about a future president?"
Gates's comments
come almost a week after NBC News reported on a Department of Justice (DOJ)
white paper outlining when the United States can use a drone strike on an
American citizen abroad.
The DOJ memo for
drone strikes argues that the Obama administration can conduct a strike on an
American citizen abroad provided that an American intelligence official
concludes that the target poses an "imminent" threat, capturing the target is
impossible, and the strike falls in line with international wartime laws on the
use of force.
"This conclusion
is reached with recognition of the extraordinary seriousness of a lethal
operation by the United States against a U.S. citizen, and also of the
extraordinary seriousness of the threat posed by senior operational al Qaeda
members and the loss of life that would result were their operations
successful," the memo says.
Lawmakers
grilled top Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, the president's nominee
to be CIA Director, on the administration's drone policies during his hearing
last week. The Hill
Obama has
dramatically stepped up the use of drones to attack suspected terrorists in the
Middle East. LA Times
The stepped-up
pace of the drone strikes -- 3,000 people have been killed in the last four
years, including three Americans along with the lack of any oversight or review
have unsettled some members of Congress, who are pushing for more explanation of
the legal rationale behind the attacks. LA Times U.S.
senators are reportedly considering an idea to create a secret “assassination
court” on the model of the FISA courts that rubber-stamp wiretapping, only this
court would be charged with deciding if “suspects” can be assassinated by U.S.
drone strikes. Antiwar In January, the United Nations announced that it had launched an
investigation into drone warfare to look into charges of unlawful killings and
to help put into place “appropriate legal and operational structures.” The Daily
Star Ben
Emmerson, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and Counterterrorism has
said that he would not shy away from the possibility of digging up evidence of
"war crimes" in his investigation, according to wired.com
AGB/HJ
- Latest News
- Top Hits