US Drone campaign: Senate panel approves beefed-up oversight

If passed, the bill will require US president to issue an annual report on the number of casualties in drone strikes.

WASHINGTON:

The US Senate Intelligence Committee has quietly approved a plan to step up both public and internal government oversight of the use of armed drones to kill suspected militants overseas.

The committee voted in closed session earlier this week to approve legislative language that would require US spy agencies to make public statistics on how many people were killed or injured in missile strikes launched from US-operated drones. The committee also approved language intended to bolster scrutiny of secret spy agency deliberations over decisions about targeting US citizens or residents for lethal drone strikes overseas.



The Obama administration has been under heavy pressure from foreign governments, the United Nations and human rights groups to be more transparent and rigorous in accounting for civilian casualties caused by drone strikes.

Though the committee did not release full details of its deliberations on the measures, sources familiar with the discussions said some committee Republicans were opposed to the drone-related clauses in the bill, which would authorise intelligence activities for the current government fiscal year which began on Oct. 1.

Ultimately, according to a press release issued by Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who chairs the intelligence panel, the committee approved the bill by a vote of 13-2. The two senators who voted against it were Republicans, a congressional source said.

The press release makes no mention of the language in the bill about drones. An official familiar with the matter said this was because some Republicans argued that, since drone attacks are officially covert actions by the US government, it would be inappropriate to set rules for such operations in a public law.



The bill approved by the committee now must go before the full Senate. The House of Representatives would also have to approve the bill, and the president will have to sign it, for it to become law.

If the language approved by the committee becomes law, once a year the president would be obliged to issue a report setting out the total number of combatants as well as the number of ‘non-combatant civilians’ killed or injured in US drone strikes abroad.

Exempted from the report would be any drone strikes that were launched in Afghanistan before the end of US combat operations there and any drone strikes conducted in a war explicitly authorised by Congress.

An official familiar with the matter said that Feinstein had been trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Obama administration to release such information voluntarily.

Administration officials have maintained privately that the numbers of non-combatant civilians killed or injured in US drone strikes against militants have been relatively minimal – in the low dozens. By contrast, respected human rights groups have produced much larger totals.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2013.