Wednesday, July 20, 2011

US claims of ‘no civilian deaths’ in Pakistan drone strikes are untrue

by Chris WoodsThe Bureau of Investigative  Journalism, July 18, 2011

Reaper UAV Taxis at Kandahar Airfield-Flickr/Defence Images
A Reaper drone on an airstrip in Kandahar. Library photo/Ministry of Defence.

Claims by President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan that ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral [civilian] death’ in Pakistan since August 2010 are found to be untrue today, following a major Bureau investigation.

According to Brennan, Barack Obama himself has ‘insisted’ that US drone strikes are ‘exceptionally surgical and precise’ and ‘do not put… innocent men, women and children in danger’.

Yet a detailed examination by the Bureau of 116 CIA ‘secret’ drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2010 has uncovered at least 10 individual attacks in which 45 or more civilians appear to have died.

The Bureau has identified and can provide the family names for, six children among those killed.

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