Just days before President Obama delivers public remarks on the U.S. drone program, there are reports of a U.S. drone strike that killed two suspected al-Qaeda militants in central Yemen on Monday, according to local officials. This comes on the heels of a similar attack that killed four suspected al-Qaeda terrorists on Saturday in southern Yemen.
Amid mounting condemnation of drone strikes abroad and ongoing hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay prison, President Obama plans to address both topics in a major upcoming address Thursday at the National Defense University. It’s a timely discussion as the U.S. seeks to expand its drone fleet of more than 7,000, mainly for use in the fight against terrorism in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.
“[Obama] will review the state of the threats we face, particularly as the al-Qaeda core has weakened but new dangers have emerged,” a White House official told the Washington Post. “He will discuss the policy and legal framework under which we take action against terrorist threats, including the use of drones.”
Obama is expected to unveil a framework for the use of drones, a weapon he has employed liberally. The unilateral, unchecked use of lethal force has prompted some members of Congress to call for greater transparency and oversight.
Gen. James E. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and adviser during Obama’s first term, previously stated that drone strikes could undermine the effectiveness of anti-terror operations.
“We’re seeing that blowback,” he said. “If you’re trying to kill your way to a solution, no matter how precise you are, you’re going to upset people even if they’re not targeted.”
He added that shifting some responsibilities “from one part of the government to another” would not necessarily solve them.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism records roughly 1,000 civilian deaths as a result of U.S. drone strikes since 2002, and 884 in Pakistan alone. Dozens more have been killed in Yemen and Somalia. Once advertised as a precise method of eliminating terrorists and enemy combatants, a 2012 study by NYU and Stanford law professors concluded that drones kill at least 50 innocents for every terrorist eliminated.
Legal experts contend that the Obama administration doesn’t actually have legal authorization to use lethal force to kill suspected terrorists with drones.
“Congress should make it clear that the 2001 AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force] does not give the president the power to use armed drones against people who were not involved in the 9/11 attacks and who are in countries not a war with the United States,” writes Marjorie Cohn, professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, in a statement to Mint Press News.
Despite lacking permission from Congress, Obama authorized 283 strikes in Pakistan as of September 2012. This is six times more than the number during President George W. Bush’s eight years in office.
Push to close Gitmo increases
Public pressure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison has also increased in recent weeks as over 100 detainees carry out a hunger strike to oppose prolonged detentions without charge or trial. More immediate demands include an improvement in the poor living conditions. Amnesty International has said that detainees are frequently subject to sleep deprivation and other forms of psychological torture. Men are housed in tiny cells kept at an uncomfortably low temperature.
On Sunday, The Guardian Newspaper reported that 103 of the 166 inmates still at Guantánamo Bay were refusing food. Of those, 30 were being force-fed, an action decried as a form of torture by the United Nations.
For Obama, closing the prison would fulfill one of his original campaign promises made in 2007. He maintains publicly that he would like to close the facility, which was opened in 2002 during the Bush administration. He is expected to speak about the situation at Guantánamo during his upcoming address this Thursday.
“It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts. It is a recruitment for extremists. It needs to be closed,” Obama said earlier this month.
Guantánamo remains the most expensive prison on earth in terms of per-detainee costs. Each year, the U.S. spends about $150 million, or a little more than $900,000 for each of the 166 detainees at Gitmo.