Obama Moves to Limit Drone Strikes

President Obama “plans to open a new phase in the nation’s long struggle with terrorism on Thursday by restricting the use of unmanned drone strikes that have been at the heart of his national security strategy and shifting control of them away from the C.I.A. to the military,” the New York Times reports.

“As part of the shift in approach, the administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged for the first time that it had killed four American citizens in drone strikes outside the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, arguing that its actions were justified by the danger to the United States.”

Washington Post: “The secrecy surrounding the program — including the criteria for
choosing targets — has led to widespread opposition from international
law and human rights advocates and, increasingly, from Congress and the
public. Although the administration has stressed the precision accuracy
of drones, independent groups have charged that thousands of civilians
have been unintentionally killed.”