U.S. claims drones only killed 116 civilians; experts say it’s way more
Journalists and rights experts say the Obama admin.’s report on drone strikes is understated and lacks transparency
A Yemeni man walks past graffiti denouncing U.S. drone strikes, painted on a wall in Sana’a, Yemen on Nov. 13, 2014 (Credit: Reuters/Khaled Abdullah)
According to the Obama administration, just 64 to 116 civilians have been killed in its secretive drone program.
The U.S. government published a report on Friday, July 1 that claims that the counter-terrorism airstrikes it conducted outside of conventional war zones between January 2009 and the end of 2015 only killed scores of so-called non-combatants.
Experts say the number is likely much higher.
The report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, analyzes 473 U.S. strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya, the vast majority of which were carried out by drones. It says 2,372 to 2,581 combatants were killed in these attacks.
The U.S. government is not clear about how it defines combatant. The New York Times reported in 2012 that President “Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties” that “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”
For years, the U.N., Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized the U.S. government’s secrecy in its drone assassination program, and have even implied that the Obama administration may be guilty of war crimes.
President Obama touted the report on Friday as a sign of his administration’s commitment to transparency. Yet scholars, journalists and human rights officials who have long monitored the drone program are worried that the investigation’s findings are drastically understated.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has been one of the leading forces in the documentation of drone casualties. In a statement, the organization noted that the U.S. government’s figures are a mere “fraction” of what its detailed research has found.
The organization used reports by local and international journalists, NGO investigations, leaked government documents, court papers and the results of field investigations to analyze the U.S. drone strikes that took place in this 2009 to 2015 period.
It found that at least 380 to 801 civilians were killed, several times more than the Obama administration’s 64 to 116 estimate. And this is still a conservative estimate, based primarily on cautious media reporting.
Salon reached out to Jack Serle, a reporter at the Bureau who specializes in the drone program.
“This data release is a welcome step towards greater transparency,” Serle said. “However, we still don’t have information on specific strikes, in particular several attacks that killed significant numbers of civilians, according to our monitoring. This makes it impossible to reconcile our civilian casualty figures with theirs.”
“The White House hasn’t even broken down the figures by year or by country, leaving us none the wiser as to how the drone war has progressed since the first strike of Obama’s presidency, on Jan. 23, 2009, killed at least nine civilians,” Serle added. The new U.S. president accepted his Nobel Peace Prize just the month before this attack.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism published an article on Friday in response to the new report, detailing its findings and methodology and comparing them to those of the U.S. government.
Human rights officials applauded the administration for the executive order, but still have numerous concerns.
Laura Pitter, senior U.S. national security counsel at Human Rights Watch, told Salon that she, too, is skeptical of the government’s casualty figures.
“It is very hard to assess the accuracy of their numbers because they are not broken down by year or even country,” she said.
“The U.S. has failed to explain who it targets and why, making it impossible to corroborate its casualty figures,” she added. “Unless details are provided on specific incidents, it’s not possible to determine if individuals killed were civilians, and thus whether the U.S. is complying with its own policy and with international law.”
Human Rights Watch conducted its own independent investigations into some of the U.S. drone strikes that took place in Yemen between 2009 and 2013, Pitter told Salon. The human rights organization concluded that more than 50 non-combatants were killed in these attacks alone, and this is a conservative estimate based on only a portion of the U.S. drone strikes that took place in one country.
The vast majority of U.S. drone strikes have taken place in Pakistan, not Yemen.
Pitter also pointed out that the fact that the U.S. government is providing a large range of civilian casualties, and not a specific number, indicates that it itself is not even 100 percent sure.
“It is hard to put much stock in them,” she said.
Secret government documents leaked to The Intercept by a whistleblower show that, according to official figures, 90 percent of people killed in U.S. drone strikes in a five-month period in provinces on Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan were not the intended targets.
The Obama administration’s new report excludes drone strikes conducted in “areas of active hostilities” such as Afghanistan from its figures.
The U.S. government published a report on Friday, July 1 that claims that the counter-terrorism airstrikes it conducted outside of conventional war zones between January 2009 and the end of 2015 only killed scores of so-called non-combatants.
Experts say the number is likely much higher.
The report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, analyzes 473 U.S. strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya, the vast majority of which were carried out by drones. It says 2,372 to 2,581 combatants were killed in these attacks.
The U.S. government is not clear about how it defines combatant. The New York Times reported in 2012 that President “Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties” that “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”
For years, the U.N., Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized the U.S. government’s secrecy in its drone assassination program, and have even implied that the Obama administration may be guilty of war crimes.
President Obama touted the report on Friday as a sign of his administration’s commitment to transparency. Yet scholars, journalists and human rights officials who have long monitored the drone program are worried that the investigation’s findings are drastically understated.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has been one of the leading forces in the documentation of drone casualties. In a statement, the organization noted that the U.S. government’s figures are a mere “fraction” of what its detailed research has found.
The organization used reports by local and international journalists, NGO investigations, leaked government documents, court papers and the results of field investigations to analyze the U.S. drone strikes that took place in this 2009 to 2015 period.
It found that at least 380 to 801 civilians were killed, several times more than the Obama administration’s 64 to 116 estimate. And this is still a conservative estimate, based primarily on cautious media reporting.
Salon reached out to Jack Serle, a reporter at the Bureau who specializes in the drone program.
“This data release is a welcome step towards greater transparency,” Serle said. “However, we still don’t have information on specific strikes, in particular several attacks that killed significant numbers of civilians, according to our monitoring. This makes it impossible to reconcile our civilian casualty figures with theirs.”
“The White House hasn’t even broken down the figures by year or by country, leaving us none the wiser as to how the drone war has progressed since the first strike of Obama’s presidency, on Jan. 23, 2009, killed at least nine civilians,” Serle added. The new U.S. president accepted his Nobel Peace Prize just the month before this attack.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism published an article on Friday in response to the new report, detailing its findings and methodology and comparing them to those of the U.S. government.
Human rights officials
After the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its report, President Obama also issued an executive order calling on the government to report on civilian casualties every year and to offer condolences to families hurt by U.S. strikes.Human rights officials applauded the administration for the executive order, but still have numerous concerns.
Laura Pitter, senior U.S. national security counsel at Human Rights Watch, told Salon that she, too, is skeptical of the government’s casualty figures.
“It is very hard to assess the accuracy of their numbers because they are not broken down by year or even country,” she said.
“The U.S. has failed to explain who it targets and why, making it impossible to corroborate its casualty figures,” she added. “Unless details are provided on specific incidents, it’s not possible to determine if individuals killed were civilians, and thus whether the U.S. is complying with its own policy and with international law.”
Human Rights Watch conducted its own independent investigations into some of the U.S. drone strikes that took place in Yemen between 2009 and 2013, Pitter told Salon. The human rights organization concluded that more than 50 non-combatants were killed in these attacks alone, and this is a conservative estimate based on only a portion of the U.S. drone strikes that took place in one country.
The vast majority of U.S. drone strikes have taken place in Pakistan, not Yemen.
Pitter also pointed out that the fact that the U.S. government is providing a large range of civilian casualties, and not a specific number, indicates that it itself is not even 100 percent sure.
“It is hard to put much stock in them,” she said.
Secret government documents leaked to The Intercept by a whistleblower show that, according to official figures, 90 percent of people killed in U.S. drone strikes in a five-month period in provinces on Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan were not the intended targets.
The Obama administration’s new report excludes drone strikes conducted in “areas of active hostilities” such as Afghanistan from its figures.
