Washington: The Obama administration has divided over the US drone program, targeting militants in Pakistan, with the US Ambassador Cameron Munter and some top military officials pushing to rein in the CIA’s aggressive pace of strikes, an American newspaper reported.
The newspaper reported that the White House National Security Council debated a slowdown in drone strikes in a meeting—the first high-level debate within the Obama administration over how aggressively to pursue the CIA’s targeted-killing program— on Thursday. At the meeting, CIA Director Leon Panetta made the case for maintaining the current program, arguing that it remains the U.S.’s best weapon against al Qaeda and its allies.
Another official, who supports a slowdown, said the discussions about revamping the program would continue, alongside talks with Pakistan, which is lobbying to rein in the drone strikes.
Most US officials, including those urging a slowdown, agree the CIA strikes using the unmanned aircraft have been one of Washington’s most effective tools in the fight against militants hiding out in Pakistan. No one in the administration is advocating an outright halt to the program.
While quoting current and former officials familiar with the discussion the newspaper reported that yet an increasingly prominent group of State Department and military officials now argue behind closed doors that the intense pace of the strikes aggravates an already troubled alliance with Pakistan and, ultimately, risks destabilizing the nuclear-armed country.
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, backed by top military officers and other State Department officials, wants the strikes to be more judicious, and argues that Pakistan’s views need to be given greater weight if the fight against militancy is to succeed, said current and former U.S. officials.
The debate over drones comes as the two sides try to repair relations badly frayed by the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis by CIA contractor Raymond Davis in January, a wave of particularly lethal drone strikes following Mr. Davis’s release from Pakistani custody in March, and the clandestine U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2.
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