Josn Gerstein writes on the Politico:
President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser offered a rare public defense Sunday of the use of armed drones to target terrorism suspects – a technique widely discussed by national security experts outside government and by human rights activists, but almost always treated as secret by U.S. officials.
“Drones, the remotely piloted vehicles, [are] a tremendously capable tool to use against the terrorist abroad. It has capability to monitor their activities. It provides a good insight to our intelligence analysts and operators in terms of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It has the capability of carrying out strikes as well,” Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday.”
In response to a question about a recent decision by Obama to give the Central Intelligence Agency and the military broader authority to carry out drone strikes in Yemen, Brennan emphasized that such strikes are always done with approval of the countries where they take place, though he stopped short of saying that local authorities had advance notice of each specific strike.
