The United States government has offered a rare public defence of the use of targeted drone strikes, arguing they are a legal and ethical tool to kill terrorists.
President Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, used the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's killing to mount a public defence of the ethics and efficiency of military drones.



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Obama aide insists drones program legal
(The World Today)

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"There is nothing in international law that bans the use of remotely piloted aircraft or that prohibits us from using lethal force against our enemies outside of an active battlefield," he said."Targeted strikes are ethical."

Mr Brennan acknowledged there had been civilian deaths caused by drone strikes but insisted casualties were exceedingly rare.

"It is hard to imagine a tool that can better minimise the risk to civilians than remotely piloted aircraft," he said.

"There is absolutely nothing casual about the extraordinary care we take in making the decision to pursue an Al Qaeda terrorist and the lengths to which we go to ensure precision and avoid the loss of innocent life.

"His speech to the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington was the most detailed justification and description of the drone program yet.US officials have generally been loath to publicly discuss the secretive CIA program, a source of sharp tensions between Washington and Islamabad.

"Broadly speaking, the debate over strikes targeted at individual members of Al Qaeda has centred on their legality, their ethics, the wisdom of using them, and the standards by which they are approved," Mr Brennan said.

"The United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific Al Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones.

"I'm here today because president Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts."

Lawful

Mr Brennan said the strikes had been certified as complying with US law by attorney-general Eric Holder, among other top officials.
"The constitution empowers the president to protect the nation from any imminent threat of attack," he said, adding Mr Obama's action was also authorised by measures passed by Congress after the September 11 attacks.

The killing of suspected militants, including American citizens overseas, has been criticised by human rights and civil liberties groups. Mr Brennan also argued the US drone campaign had left Al Qaeda seriously weakened, and unable to replace wiped-out leaders.

He said Osama bin Laden bemoaned "disaster after disaster" inflicted by the US onslaught on Al Qaeda and even mulled changing his terror group's name.He said Al Qaeda was losing "badly," was a "shadow" of its former self, and that its core leadership would soon be "no longer relevant".

He said the Al Qaeda leader's frustration at the demise of his group poured out in documents seized from his Pakistan compound by US Navy SEAL commandos who killed him a year ago.
"He confessed to 'disaster after disaster'" for Al Qaeda, Mr Brennan said, noting that some of the captured material would be published online this week by the Combating Terrorism Centre at the US Military Academy at West Point.
Mr Brennan also said that subsequent US operations to wipe out senior Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan had left the group reeling.

"Under intense pressure in the tribal regions of Pakistan, they have fewer places to train and groom the next generation of operatives, they're struggling to attract new recruits. Morale is low," he said.


ABC/wires