US expands killer drone program

LA Times via Houston Chronicle:

Despite protests from other countries, the United States is expanding a top-secret effort to kill terrorism suspects with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized al-Qaida, U.S. officials say.

The CIA's failed attempt to assassinate al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri in Pakistan on Jan. 13 was the latest strike in the government's "targeted killing" program, a highly classified initiative that officials say has broadened as the terrorist network splintered into smaller cells and fled its haven in Afghanistan.

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Little is known publicly about the targeted-killing program. The Bush administration has refused to discuss how many strikes it has made, how many people have died or how it decides whom to target. No U.S. officials were willing to speak about it on the record because the program is classified.

Although it is unknown how many times the targets have been missed, several U.S. officials confirmed at least 19 occasions since Sept. 11, 2001, in which Predators successfully fired Hellfire missiles on terror-leader suspects overseas, including 10 in Iraq in one month alone last year. The Predator strikes have killed at least four senior al-Qaida leaders but also many civilians.

Critics dispute the program's legality under U.S. and international law and say it is administered with little oversight outside the CIA. U.S. intelligence officials vehemently insist it is one of their most tightly regulated, carefully vetted programs.

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The "critics" are not identified by the LA Times so we don't know what their agenda is or motves are. The LA Times and other liberal papers sometimes attempt to hide anti war pukes and Bush critics under the guise of non partisanship. At this point there is no way of knowing whehter this type of fraud is involved in this story. This link to the story has much more detail.