Get to the Chopper! Posted by Patrick Barry

 The already controversial issue of Predator drone strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan suffered a potentially damaging blow yesterday, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, offered some too-candid remarks during DNI Director Blair's annual threat assessment:

At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Islamic extremist targets along Pakistan's northwestern border.

"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.

The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital, and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.

While I agree with Spencer, that Feinstein's comments were highly problematic given how this issue plays in Pakistan, ultimately what the gaffe illustrates is not so much the need for Senators to be more cautious about sensitive issues, but rather the need for U.S. to integrate policies it finds valuable within a more sustainable framework that reflects interests, and prioritizes wants. 

At a tactical level, it's increasingly difficult to question the utility of drone strikes for furthering the interest of harrying al-Qaeda central, at least in the short term.  CT experts attest to their utility for disrupting terrorist operations, arguing that they cost less, and cause less collateral damage than other options.  Obama's decision to continue Predator operations confirms their value, as does Adm. Blair's analysis an al-Qaeda central, which indicates that their activities have been handicapped since use of the Predators began in earnest. 

But if what we would like is to continue to use an effective tactic for countering terrorism, then that tactic has to be positioned within a strategic framework that makes its use sustainable over the long term.  It doesn't matter how effective Predators are at killing al-Qaeda operatives - as long as the Pakistani government rails at us for using them, we run the risk of some incident like the one yesterday jeopardizing the operation.  This faces us with a decision: we can either stop using Predators to strike at terrorists, which seems like something we'd rather not do. Or we can fix the relationship so that occasional careless remark won't overly-complicate our strategy or constrain our options.  If that improved relationship allows the U.S. and Pakistan to develop a joint-strategy that eliminates al-Qaeda operatives without sacrificing innocent Pakistanis, then even better.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

Lose the picture. We're talking about real bombs and real people, not Hollywood fantasy.

[Zathras]

No, what Feinstein's gaffe really illustrates is the need for Senators to be more cautious when discussing sensitive issues. Integrating a sustainable policy framework (or sustaining an integrated framework for policy) is a fine thing for the Obama administration to attempt (I think) but in the meantime Senators need to take their jobs seriously enough to distinguish between questions that can be asked in public and those that cannot.

I agree that the picture is inappropriate.

[Dan Kervick]

Feinstein has been around a very long time, and she is no novice. She has been on the Intelligence Committee for years, and has risen to the position of Chair. She knows the rules. So I think we have to consider the very real possibility that she said what she said on purpose. What her motives are, and whether they are sound or not, I don't know. But to assume an old veteran like Feinstein would make a rookie mistake like this strains credulity.

One hypothesis: Feinstein would like the government of Pakistan to make a clear public declaration that they are actually on our side in this, and take more direct action against its own outlaws on the ground, so the US doesn't have to do the dirty work from the air. Predator strikes, no matter how precise, blow up entire houses and kill non-combatants. For every terrorist we kill from the sky, we probably create ten more elsewhere from the outrage and blowback - especially if the Pakistani government publicly condemns attacks that it secretly supports.

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One hypothesis: Feinstein would like the government of Pakistan to make a clear public declaration that they are actually on our side in this, and take more direct action against its own outlaws on the ground, so the US doesn't have to do the dirty work from the air. Predator strikes, no matter how precise, blow up entire houses and kill non-combatants. For every terrorist we kill from the sky, we probably create ten more elsewhere from the outrage and blowback - especially if the Pakistani government publicly condemns attacks that it secretly supports.

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One hypothesis: Feinstein would like the government of Pakistan to make a clear public declaration that they are actually on our side in this, and take more direct action against its own outlaws on the ground, so the US doesn't have to do the dirty work from the air.

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