The Guy Who’s Always Right, Harold Koh, Changes His Mind

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In her profile of Harold Koh’s flip-flop on drones (and counterterrorism generally), Tara McKelvey shows that Koh joined the Administration with such certitude about his initial position–that drones were assassinations–he pissed everyone off.

“Everybody hated him,” says Cartwright, describing how Koh would rip into him and other people: “He would say, ‘Oh, you military guys, you’re just so stupid.’ ”

One of Koh’s key objections–and one of the obvious weak points in the Administration’s current justification on drones–had to do with the difficulty in showing that drone targets presented an imminent threat.

Koh referred to President Bush as the nation’s “torturer in chief” and told a New York Times reporter in December 2002 that the policy of targeted killings seemed to violate the government’s longstanding ban on assassination: “The question is, what factual showing will demonstrate that they had warlike intentions against us and who sees that evidence before any action is taken?”

But now, after seeing a bunch of classified information that should not change the broad outlines of the law, Koh has decided they’re not extrajudicial killings and assassinations after all. He denies this is a change in his opinion.

“I have never changed my mind,” he says. “Not from before I was in the government—or after.”

Sure, Koh is just one lawyer reviewing these questions, bureaucratically (though not morally, given Koh’s past comments on counterterrorism) a relatively minor one. But McKelvey’s portrait of Koh shows that what has remained unchanged about Koh are not his legal stances, but his certitude that he is correct, whatever his current legal stance.

Compare that with the thoughts of the guy who used to have Koh’s job, William Taft IV.

I ask Taft, “Why does the law matter when everyone thinks something is OK?”

“That is actually a deep question. When a human life is at stake, there needs to be a process for determining that a person can be executed or shot in an armed conflict,” he says. “Otherwise, we will have an individual just deciding that he wants to kill someone.”

“What if it’s the president?” I ask.

“Especially,” said Taft. “He’s the main person who might possibly have this authority, and you’ve got to watch it.”

We have a system that ensures that someone challenges the opinions of those, like Koh, who may be certain but may also be suffering from the tunnel vision of someone seeing the world of classified information our “democratic” government won’t share.  It’s a process that guarantees all the very smart and unwavering in a belief in their own correctness have someone who challenges their certitude.

It’s called due process.

There’s a reason why the people who are certain they’re already right or the people who have unlimited power should not have the ability to approve the killing of someone else with no review. It’s because those people will be least apt to question their own beliefs.

Obama Puts More American Targets in Yemen

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I want to unpack this dense LAT article on drones–titled “In Yemen, lines blur as U.S. steps up airstrikes.” Maybe it’s intentional but both at LAT’s level and that of its Administration sources, the depiction of our efforts in Yemen is a big muddle. The article is useful for details it offers on what and where JSOC is operating and where CIA is (though here too, the title “lines blur” is appropriate). And it advances an important argument:

As the pace [on strikes in Yemen] quickens and the targets expand, however, the distinction may be blurring between operations targeting militants who want to attack Americans and those aimed at fighters seeking to overthrow the Yemeni government.

U.S. officials insist that they will not be drawn into a civil war and that they do not intend to put ground troops in Yemen other than trainers and small special operations units.

Yet because the article accepts the frame of its sources, it doesn’t go far enough in pointing out where the lines are clear, the US story about those lines is the primary source of blurred understanding.

As just one example, it treats AQAP as “the main insurgent” group.

The U.S. has focused its airstrikes in areas where militants from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the main insurgent group operating in Yemen, and their tribal allies have seized and held towns in the last year.

Not only does this elide the difference between insurgent and terrorist, but the entire article makes no mention of other opposition groups like the Houthis, which have also been targeted (they say, by Saudi-assisted Yemeni forces).

But that’s nothing compared to the contradictory comments apparently coming from government sources. Consider this passage:

Most militants fighting under the Al Qaeda banner in Yemen are local insurgents, U.S. officials say, along with Saudis bolstering the ranks and assuming leadership roles. Some of the militants are known to harbor ambitions of attacking the West: Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, who made the underwear bomb used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in an attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit, remains at large in Yemen, U.S. officials say.

If most of these militants are “local insurgents,” then is it really the case that AQAP is the main insurgent group? Or is the relationship something different?

And it’s interesting to see “US officials,” in an apparent effort to justify targeting these “local insurgents” as an international terrorist group, pointing to Asiri as proof that AQAP still wants to hit the West. I don’t doubt he does. But the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki was premised on the notion that he, not Asiri, was the external operations head pushing AQAP to attack the West. Were we targeting the wrong guy?

Given the ambiguities about whom we’re targeting, the contradictory claims about why we’ve ratcheted up attacks is troubling. The article first says that the US limited drone strikes out of a desire not to be seen as backing Saleh.

The U.S. effort in Yemen was brought to a virtual standstill — a “lull,” Gen. James N. Mattis told Congress — by Saleh’s yearlong effort to cling to power. The U.S. did not want to be seen as backing a repressive ruler, and it also became dangerous for American personnel to be in the country. Since Saleh’s departure, the use of drones and manned warplanes to attack militants has expanded significantly.

Yet the article later suggests that Saleh, not the Americans, was the impediment to using drones.

Yemen’s new president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, has proved more willing than his predecessor to approve U.S. airstrikes, one of the reasons for the recent surge in attacks, American and Yemeni officials said.

Given discussions about insurgents taking over entire towns in the south, the impetus for strikes may be something else entirely–an attempt to save the partner government we’ve worked with for the last decade, regardless of its legitimacy.

Now consider the varying explanations for why we’re attacking militants, particularly given the Administration’s rather tardy discovery that Asiri, not (or not just) Awlaki has been pushing to attack Western targets. Read more →

White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler Vows Not to Let the White House Be Defeated by Actual Citizens

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In an article describing how–in the guise of “flexibility”–the White House has continued the seeming relentless grab for unchecked executive power, White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler offers a terribly cynical explanation for the Administration’s asinine levels of secrecy regarding its drone strikes.

But in an interview, White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler acknowledged Mr. Obama has developed a broader view of executive power since he was a senator. In explaining the shift, she cited the nature of the office.

“Many issues that he deals with are just on him, where the Congress doesn’t bear the burden in the same way,” she said. “Until one experiences that first hand, it is difficult to appreciate fully how you need flexibility in a lot of circumstances.”

[snip]

Ms. Ruemmler said Mr. Obama tries to publicly explain his use of executive power, but says certain counterterrorism programs like the drone campaign are exceptions. Opening them to public scrutiny would be “self-defeating,” she said.

The WSJ doesn’t explain what she meant when invoking “self-defeat.” But her stance was described in a Daniel Klaidman article on the Administration’s decision, at a meeting in the Situation Room last November, to release more information about the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.

Another senior official expressing caution about the plan was Kathryn Ruemmler, the White House counsel. She cautioned that the disclosures could weaken the government’s stance in pending litigation. The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration under the Freedom of Information Act seeking the release of the Justice Department legal opinion in the Awlaki case. (The department has declined to provide the documents requested.)

That is, Ruemmler’s not making an argument about the efficacy of the drone strikes themselves; al Qaeda already knows who’s responsible for the arms raining down on their heads.

Rather, Ruemmler doesn’t want to be “defeated” by journalists, civil liberties organizations, and ordinary citizens seeking to at least understand, if not limit, executive power.

Kathy Ruemmler’s not waging her counterterrorism war against al Qaeda when she warns of self-defeat. She’s waging her counterterrorism war against us.

The US Still Doesn’t Want to Admit to the 44 Dead Yemenis

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In a timely report, the Bureau of Independent Journalism yesterday released a report on the increased number of US drone strikes in Yemen in the last year, since Arab Spring uprisings challenged Ali Abdullah Saleh’s power and insurgents made significant gains in the south.

Covert US strikes against alleged militants in Yemen have risen steeply during the Arab spring, and are currently at the same level as the CIA’s controversial drone campaign in Pakistan, a new study by the Bureau reveals.

At least 26 US military and CIA strikes involving cruise missiles, aircraft, drones or naval bombardments have taken place in the volatile Gulf nation to date, killing hundreds of alleged militants linked to the regional al Qaeda franchise. But at least 54 civilians have died too, the study found.

[snip]

The recent surge in attacks appears linked to the appointment of the new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. In his inauguration speech he called for ‘the continuation of war against al-Qaida as a religious and national duty.’

Along with an update on drone strike numbers in Yemen, TBIJ released the results of a report the Yemeni government commission did into the December 17, 2009 strike in which–the report concludes–44 civilians were killed. The report provides names and ages of those civilian victims; half are children. It also describes the lethal effect of cluster bombs included in the missiles.

This is the attack, of course, that journalist Abdelelah Haider Shaye reported on, one of the reasons, presumably the President Obama personally intervened to keep Shaye in prison. And the Yemeni government found even more civilians had died in the attack than Shaye first reported.

Among other things, the release of the report gave TBIJ to ask State–WikiLeaked cables from which clearly confirm the US role in this strike–for comment on the strike. And in spite of irrefutable evidence we were behind the attack, here’s what State said to TBIJ.

A State Department spokesperson, speaking on background terms, replied: ‘I don’t have any information for you with respect to the December 17, 2009 incident in question. I refer you to the Government of Yemen for additional information on its counterterrorism efforts.’

It’s bad enough that State pretends to know nothing of this strike. But at this point, deferring questions to Yemen really destroys our credibility.

Is the “Roger” Profile Yet Another InfoOp in Support of Signature Strikes?

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Greg Miller got a lot of buzz this weekend for his profile of the head of CTC, whom he calls “Roger.” The article is in no way unbalanced–Miller makes it clear that Roger is an asshole and suggests he might bear some responsibility for the Khost bombing.

But I couldn’t help but wonder whether the story was another in a series of articles designed to pressure David Petraeus to resume signature strikes–those drone strikes that target a pattern rather than an individual high level target.

After all, the article ends by conflating a description of Roger’s effort to push signature strikes with Osama bin Laden’s killing.

“He came in with a big idea on a cold, rainy Friday afternoon,” said a former high-ranking CIA official involved in drone operations. “It was a new flavor of activity, and had to do with taking senior terrorists off the battlefield.”

The former official declined to describe the activity. But others said the CTC chief proposed launching what came to be known as “signature strikes,” meaning attacks on militants based solely on their patterns of behavior.

Previously, the agency had needed confirmation of the presence of an approved al-Qaeda target before it could shoot. With permission from the White House, it would begin hitting militant gatherings even when it wasn’t clear that a specific operative was in the drone’s crosshairs.

Roger’s relentless approach meshed with the Obama mind-set. Shortly after taking office, Obama met with his first CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, and ordered a redoubled effort in the fight against al-Qaeda and the search for the terrorist group’s elusive leader.

From 53 strikes in 2009, the number soared to 117 in 2010, before tapering off last year.

The cumulative toll helped to crumple al-Qaeda even as CTC analysts finally found a courier trail that led them to bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Yet it somehow neglects to mention why the signature strikes tailed off: because last March’s Shiga strike–launched over our Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter’s, objections in the days after the Raymond Davis release, and killing a significant number of civilians set off an extended debate in the Administration over the relative value of the signature strikes. The debate ended by giving newly confirmed CIA Director Petraeus final say over signature strikes, which has resulted, thus far, in a move away from their use.

Read more →

Drones Killing Fewer Civilians, But Still Killing Diplomacy

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In an article describing how our use of drones in Pakistan continues to mobilize public opinion against US involvement, the NYT includes this description of how militants claim to be limiting the efficacy of some drone strikes.

During an interview last month in Shawal, a thickly-forested district of plunging valleys that became a haven for Al Qaeda after 2001, a senior Taliban commander, Wali ur-Rehman, ordered his fighters to scan a newly arrived car with a camcorder. Mr. Rehman explained that the camera could somehow detect otherwise invisible signals from the “patrai” — local slang for small electronic tracking devices that, many tribesmen believe, guide American missiles to their target.

“This is our new weapon,” said Mr. Rehman, who has a $5 million United States government bounty on his head, pointing to the Sony camera. “It has saved a lot of lives.”

Whether that was true is unclear, although a former C.I.A. official confirmed that the agency does use tracking devices to identify targets. Either way, Mr. Rehman’s camcorder served a gruesome secondary purpose: recording the last testimony of tribesmen accused of spying for the United States, dozens of whom have been tortured and executed.

That is, the Taliban have developed some way to scan for locally applied sensors the drones use to assist targeting. And–the NYT suggests but doesn’t say explicitly–those found assisting in targeting with those sensors have, in the past, been treated as spies for the CIA (though the story notes that the Taliban has backed off executing such people after concern about some innocent deaths).

That’s one change in drone warfare, it seems. Though I’m struck by NYT’s thin coverage of another: David Petraeus’ new targeting rules. It notes the increasing precision of the drone strikes.

Accounts of civilian casualties play a major role in Pakistani anger toward the drones. An extraordinary claim by President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, last June that there had not been “a single collateral death” over the previous year drew an indignant response. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which monitors the toll, counted “credible media accounts” of between 63 and 127 nonmilitant deaths in 2011, and a recent Associated Press investigation found evidence that at least 56 villagers and tribal police had been killed in the 10 largest strikes since August 2010. But analysts, American officials and even many tribesmen agree the drones are increasingly precise. Of 10 strikes this year, the local news media have alleged civilian deaths in one case. The remainder of those killed — 58 people, by conservative estimates — were militants.

And notes the Administration debate that resulted in changed drone rules.

The pace has relented, with 64 strikes recorded in 2011, down from 117 in 2010, according to the Long War Journal, a Web site that closely monitors the strikes. A lively debate inside the Obama administration last summer gave the State Department greater say in the strikes. The final say, however, still rests with David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director.

But it doesn’t talk about one of the key reasons why the revised targeting has resulted in fewer civilian casualties: the move away from “signature strikes” which target patterns of behavior rather than named targets. Here’s how the WSJ described the change in a seminal article from last year.

Signature strikes target groups of men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren’t always known. The bulk of CIA’s drone strikes are signature strikes.

Read more →

Are Presidents Who Cover Up Crimes Murderous Sociopaths?

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Kevin Drum and Adam Serwer are having a MoJo fight over how to respond to the news that Obama intervened to keep journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye imprisoned. Drum started the debate by asking what I consider a straw man argument: Is President Obama a murderous sociopath? Serwer objected because,

it essentially turns a policy issue into a matter of trusting Barack Obama. Instead of questioning the approach to Shaye’s detention, we’re invited to consider whether this fine fellow, Barack Obama, is a murderer.

And Drum responded by arguing that there are some times the public is just not going to be informed.

The question, given the legitimate sensitivity of intelligence sources, is whether the U.S. government is required to be entirely transparent about every single action it takes. In this case, President Obama expressed “concern” about the release of Shaye, which caused the Yemeni president to withdraw a pardon that was in the works. Should Obama be required to explain in detail the reasons he did this?

[snip]

The plain fact is that when it comes to terrorism and the intelligence community, there are some cases where the public just isn’t going to be informed.

Drum does say he hopes the press asks for more information on this front, but he seems fairly complacent about the possibility that in a democracy citizens are being asked to simply trust the President.

That stance seems to operate in isolation from some things we do know, however. Consider these facts:

Obama has covered up a number of crimes committed in the name of counterterrorism.

The kidnapping and torture of Khaled al-Masri. The warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. The kidnapping and torture of Binyam Mohamed–before the torture memos were written.

Those are just a few of the crimes that the Obama Administration has taken affirmative actions–either with state secrets invocations or pressure on our allies–to cover up. It has also pursued habeas appeals in cases where the government has no reliable evidence tying a detainee to al Qaeda, effectively imprisoning someone unnecessarily … because of political difficulties in  Yemen.

An Obama Administration official insinuated those who try to verify civilian casualties are al Qaeda sympathizers.

When journalists from the Bureau of Independent Journalism risked their lives to get a real sense of how many civilians had died in drone strikes in Pakistan, an Obama official speaking anonymously suggested that such journalism amounted to support for al Qaeda.

Let’s be under no illusions — there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed.

This, in spite of the fact that TBIJ’s report actually debunked some claimed civilian casualties and disproved Pakistani opposition claims of much higher civilian casualties. This, also in spite of the fact that TBIJ reported a lower level of civilian casualties than the AP did in its own independent reporting released a short time later.

The Administration spent 3 weeks worrying about the impact of the December 17, 2009 strike in Abyan.

In Drum’s first piece, he dismisses the notion that the Administration might be upset with Shaye’s coverage based on ABC’s reporting of US involvement in the strike.

Now we get to the part where I wonder what’s really going on. Because here’s the thing: the attack on al Majala was no secret. It happened on December 17, and the very next day, on its nightly newscast, ABC News reported this:

On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

….Until tonight, American officials had hedged about any U.S. role in the strikes against Yemen and news reports from Yemen attributed the attacks to the Yemen Air Force.

….Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids, according to reports from Yemen, and opposition leaders said many of the dead were innocent civilians.

This story was picked up fairly widely, including in this detailed report from Bill Roggio and in this post from Glenn himself. So while Shaye’s photos might have been the kind of smoking-gun proof you’d need in a courtroom, within a few hours of the strike it was common knowledge that U.S. cruise missiles had done most of the damage and that there were local reports of many civilian casualties.

Note that ABC used Shaye’s work in this period, so it’s possible that Shaye was one source for this story (though he reported fewer civilian casualties than ABC did).

But in any case, the fact that this story got reported doesn’t change the Administration’s concerns about reporting on this strike.

Consider the detailed assessment of media coverage of the civilian casualties–including the ABC report–in this December 21, 2009 cable circulated to the White House and Secretary of State.

¶2. (C) The ROYG made swift work of announcing the preemptive dawn strikes against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Sana’a and Abyan governorates on December 17. But ABC TV news reports of U.S. intelligence and logistical assistance to the ROYG were picked up on the same day by Yemen’s opposition media, and were quickly followed by charges of scores of civilian deaths due to the “joint” airstrikes in Abyan by ROYG and U.S. forces. Read more →

What Is Government Covering Up with the Imprisonment of Yemeni Journalist?

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Jeremy Scahill has a disturbing story of how President Obama intervened to make sure Yemen kept journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye imprisoned even after domestic pressure convinced then President Ali Abdullah Saleh to release him.  [Note, I’ve adjusted the order of Scahill’s report to make Obama’s intervention more clear]

After Shaye was convicted and sentenced, tribal leaders intensified their pressure on President Saleh to issue a pardon. “Some prominent Yemenis and tribal sheikhs visited the president to mediate in the issue and the president agreed to release and pardon him,” recalls Barman. “We were waiting for the release of the pardon—it was printed out and prepared in a file for the president to sign and announce the next day.” Word of the impending pardon leaked in the Yemeni press. “That same day,” Barman says, “the president [Saleh] received a phone call from Obama expressing US concerns over the release of Abdulelah Haider.”

[snip]

On February 2, 2011, President Obama called Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The two discussed counterterrorism cooperation and the battle against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. At the end of the call, according to a White House read-out, Obama “expressed concern” over the release of a man named Abdulelah Haider Shaye, whom Obama said “had been sentenced to five years in prison for his association with AQAP.”

[snip]

Saleh rescinded the pardon.

Shaye’s apparent crime?

Interviewing Anwar al-Awlaki–effectively the equivalent crime for which the US imprisoned Al Jazeera journalist Sami al-Hajj and wiretapped Lawrence Wright, independent contact with people associated with al Qaeda.

Although, as Scahill describes, Yemen trumped up a bunch of evidence to insinuate closer ties between Shaye and AQAP. Scahill also notes that one of the key claims made to justify the killing of Awlaki–his celebration of Nidal Hasasn’s attack on Fort Hood–came in part from Shaye’s reporting, which included a number of questions that challenged Awlaki and called him on his inconsistency.

Read the whole article–it’s infuriating.

I wanted to point out a few points of timing with respect to Shaye’s imprisonment, because I think the government may have specific reasons it wants Shaye to remain in prison.

Yemen’s intelligence agents first detained Shaye in July 2010. Then, he was arrested and detained on August 6, 2010. As Scahill notes, that was right as the US was ratcheting up its attempts to kill Awlaki (Awlaki was placed on the CIA kill list in April 2010, and the OLC memo authorizing his killing was completed in June 2010).

As it happens, that was also the period when State was just beginning to figure out which diplomatic cables might have been leaked to WikiLeaks. Mind you, State didn’t have a really good sense of what would be published until November of 2010, when the NYT happily told them.

But I do find it interesting that Obama’s call to Saleh came two months after WikiLeaks published this cable reporting a meeting between then CentCom Commander Petraeus and Saleh. As Scahill noted, the cable recorded Saleh boasting about lying about US airstrikes. But it also included this conversation about civilian casualties.

¶4. (S/NF) Saleh praised the December 17 and 24 strikes against AQAP but said that “mistakes were made” in the killing of civilians in Abyan. The General responded that the only civilians killed were the wife and two children of an AQAP operative at the site, prompting Saleh to plunge into a lengthy and confusing aside with Deputy Prime Minister Alimi and Minister of Defense Ali regarding the number of terrorists versus civilians killed in the strike. (Comment: Saleh’s conversation on the civilian casualties suggests he has not been well briefed by his advisors on the strike in Abyan, a site that the ROYG has been unable to access to determine with any certainty the level of collateral damage. End Comment.) Read more →

Eric Holder Suggests Scary Iran Plot Was Legal

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I’m sure that Eric Holder didn’t mean to suggest that the assassination plots purportedly planned by Iran’s Quds Force and Manssor Arbabsiar with the assistance of a DEA informant targeting the Saudi Ambassador to the US, Adel al-Jubeir, as well as Israeli and Saudi figures in Argentina, are legal.

But given the debate between the ACLU’s Anthony Romero and Jack Goldsmith over whether assassinations in this country would be legal, I wanted to look at what he did say.

In their debate on WBUR’s On Point, Romero said something to the effect of Holder’s argument for targeted killing would serve as justification for other countries to target their own “terrorists” in our country. Goldsmith objected, saying such assassinations would only be legal in failed states (implicitly, like Yemen and Pakistan) where a state was unable to apprehend such a figure.

That’s not what Holder said. Here’s what he did say:

Over the last three years alone, al Qaeda and its associates have directed several attacks – fortunately, unsuccessful – against us from countries other than Afghanistan.   Our government has both a responsibility and a right to protect this nation and its people from such threats.

This does not mean that we can use military force whenever or wherever we want.   International legal principles, including respect for another nation’s sovereignty, constrain our ability to act unilaterally.   But the use of force in foreign territory would be consistent with these international legal principles if conducted, for example, with the consent of the nation involved – or after a determination that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States.

Furthermore, it is entirely lawful – under both United States law and applicable law of war principles – to target specific senior operational leaders of al Qaeda and associated forces.  [my emphasis]

Strip this passage of its American exceptionalism, and here’s what it justifies: Read more →

Uniforms and WikiLeaks in the Discussion of the Anwar al-Awlaki Killing

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This panel discussion between former State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley, former Gitmo Chief Prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis, and ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer is one of the more nuanced, interesting discussions on the Anwar al-Awlaki killing. Not surprisingly, it was shown on Al Jazeera English, not, say, NBC.

One highlight, for me, came when Davis pointed out that the CIA, not JSOC, had targeted Awlaki. That’s significant because it effectively made whoever pulled the trigger an unlawful enemy combatant, just as Omar Khadr was (the government argued in his military commission) for engaging in hostilities without wearing a uniform. Of course, Davis ended the discussion by noting that we’re the big kid on the block, so we’ll never be held accountable for the things we prosecute others for.

More interesting still came when PJ Crowley cited this WikiLeaks cable, reporting on a January 2, 2010 meeting between Ali Abdullah Saleh and David Petraeus back in his CentCom days, to show that Yemen was secretly supporting us on drone strikes, including the one that targeted Awlaki on December 24, 2009 (well before, it should be noted, the OLC had authorized his killing).

AQAP STRIKES: CONCERN FOR CIVILIAN CASUALTIES ———————————————

¶4.(S/NF) Saleh praised the December 17 and 24 strikes against AQAP but said that “mistakes were made” in the killing of civilians in Abyan. The General responded that the only civilians killed were the wife and two children of an AQAP operative at the site, prompting Saleh to plunge into a lengthy and confusing aside with Deputy Prime Minister Alimi and Minister of Defense Ali regarding the number of terrorists versus civilians killed in the strike. (Comment: Saleh’s conversation on the civilian casualties suggests he has not been well briefed by his advisors on the strike in Abyan, a site that the ROYG has been unable to access to determine with any certainty the level of collateral damage. End Comment.) AQAP leader Nassr al-Wahishi and extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may still be alive, Saleh said, but the December strikes had already caused al-Qaeda operatives to turn themselves in to authorities and residents in affected areas to deny refuge to al-Qaeda. Saleh raised the issue of the Saudi Government and Jawf governorate tribal sheikh Amin al-Okimi, a subject that is being reported through other channels.

SHIFTING AIRSTRIKE STRATEGIES

—————————–

¶5.(S/NF) President Obama has approved providing U.S. intelligence in support of ROYG ground operations against AQAP targets, General Petraeus informed Saleh. Saleh reacted coolly, however, to the General’s proposal to place USG personnel inside the area of operations armed with real-time, direct feed intelligence from U.S. ISR platforms overhead. “You cannot enter the operations area and you must stay in the joint operations center,” Saleh responded. Any U.S. casualties in strikes against AQAP would harm future efforts, Saleh asserted. Saleh did not have any objection, however, to General Petraeus’ proposal to move away from the use of cruise missiles and instead have U.S. fixed-wing bombers circle outside Yemeni territory, “out of sight,” and engage AQAP targets when actionable intelligence became available. Saleh lamented the use of cruise missiles that are “not very accurate” and welcomed the use of aircraft-deployed precision-guided bombs instead. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh said, prompting Deputy Prime Minister Alimi to joke that he had just “lied” by telling Parliament that the bombs in Arhab, Abyan, and Shebwa were American-made but deployed by the ROYG.

I find Crowley’s citation of it notable because, while as State Department spokesperson, he strongly argued for the humane treatment of Bradley Manning (and got fired for it), he also routinely criticized the WikiLeaks leaks of State Department cables.

Yet even he now finds himself relying on them to try to understand what the government did when it targeted an American citizen. Read more →