An article today in the New York Times offered a new piece of evidence in the CIA’s nine-year drone strikes campaign in Pakistan. Declan Walsh reported that anonymous officials—“two senior U.S. officials” and a “third official”—claimed that airstrikes on February 6 and 8, reported by Pakistani and international media as drone strikes, were not actually conducted by the United States. According to one of the sources: “They were not ours. We haven’t had any kinetic activity since January.” An official is also quoted as assigning responsibility to the “Pakistani military…the Taliban fighting among themselves. Or it could have been simply bad reporting.” Read more »

Massimo Calabresi, “The Path to War,” TIME Magazine, March 11, 2013.

The most compelling argument for Obama, the former law professor, was that a nuclear Iran would spell the end of the international regime limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. Obama had written about the regime in college and had made denuclearization his primary focus in the Senate. He made bolstering the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a top priority in his first two years as President, and in his second term, Obama is planning to dispatch top aides to negotiate a large nuclear-warhead reduction with Russia. Read more »

On Tuesday, my colleague Dan Markey published a new CFR Policy Innovation Memorandum (PIM), “Support Process Over Personalities in Pakistan.” In it, he argues that the United States should avoid playing favorites as Pakistani leadership transitions unfold over the course of 2013. As part of his broader argument, he suggests that the U.S. government should refrain from drone strikes during the campaign season prior to parliamentary elections. I’ve asked him to write a guest post about this aspect of the PIM. Read more »

On August 4, 2011, six weeks into his tenure as secretary of defense, Leon Panetta gave his first press briefing at the Pentagon. After briefly commenting on the impressive civilian and military leadership in the Department of Defense (DOD), he got right to the point: Read more »

Steven Erlanger, “An Unexpected Mission for France’s Defense Minister,” New York Times, February 19, 2013. Read more »

Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking to the Easley Rotary Club in Easley, South Carolina, offered a standard defense of drone strikes: “It’s a weapon that needs to be used. It’s a tactical weapon. A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle that is now armed.” Graham also noted that without drones it would be hard to attack terrorists groups along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, where “terrorists groups like the [Haqqani] network and Al-Shabaab are residing, very remote regions.” Forget that Al-Shabaab has never been reported to be in that region, Graham also maintained that the drone program “has been very effective.” Read more »

Last March, in a House hearing, Representative  Tom Graves asked FBI director Robert Mueller: “Does the federal government have the ability to kill a U.S. citizen on United States soil, or just overseas?” Mueller responded, “I am going to defer that to others in the Department of Justice.” In light of the leaked Department of Justice white paper that provided some of the Obama administration’s legal rationale for the targeted killing of U.S. citizens, the question has been raised again. In an effort to find an answer, Senator Rand Paul placed a hold on John Brennan’s nomination to become the director of central intelligence, declaring in a statement yesterday: “I have placed a hold on the nomination of John Brennan to serve as director of the CIA until he answers the question of whether or not the President can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on U.S. soil.” Read more »

Last night, President Obama’s State of the Union address included the following passage:

“Today, the organization that attacked us on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self. Different al-Qaeda affiliates and extremist groups have emerged – from the Arabian Peninsula to Africa. The threat these groups pose is evolving. But to meet this threat, we don’t need to send tens of thousands of our sons and daughters abroad, or occupy other nations. Instead, we will need to help countries like Yemen, Libya, and Somalia provide for their own security, and help allies who take the fight to terrorists, as we have in Mali. And, where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans.” Read more »

Dianne Feinstein, Opening Remarks at the Senate Intelligence Committee Confirmation Hearing for John Brennan, February 7, 2013. Read more »

Today, John Brennan, White House homeland security advisor and deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism, will appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) to discuss his nomination to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Although he is expected to be voted out of the SSCI and approved by the full Senate, several committee members have raised lingering questions about Brennan. Senator John McCain noted: “I have many questions and concerns…especially what role he played in the so-called enhanced interrogation programs while serving at the CIA during the [George W. Bush] administration.” Last week, after Brennan made courtesy calls to the SSCI, Senator Ron Wyden’s spokesperson said the senator was frustrated by “the lack of transparency from the administration and the nominee,” specifically regarding their legal justification for killing American citizens, which will now reportedly be provided to the SSCI members. Similarly, Senator Mark Udall issued a press release that stated: Read more »