Obama: US was not 'cavalier' over hostage drone killings

By The Guardian

Barack Obama has insisted the US was not “cavalier” in its assessment of the risks to civilians as the accidental deaths of two hostages in a drone strike against al-Qaida overshadowed a planned pep talk for intelligence chiefs.

 

“Today, like all Americans, our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the families of Dr Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto,” the president told a group of intelligence officers gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the office of the director of national intelligence.

“We are going to review what happened,” he added. “We are going to identify the lessons that can be learned and any improvement and changes that can be made and I know those of you who are hear continue to share our determination to continue to do everything we can to prevent the loss of innocent lives.”

 

But the president appeared keen to reassure those who may blame themselves for the incident that he felt their pain too.

 

“I was asked by somebody: ‘How do you absorb news like we received the other day?’ and I told the truth: it’s hard.

“We all grieve when we lose an American life; we all grieve when any American life is taken. We don’t take this work lightly and I know that each and everyone of you understand the magnitude of we do and the stakes that are involved. These aren’t abstractions; we are not cavalier. And we understand the solemn responsibilities that are given to us.”

Meanwhile one of the architects of Obama’s legal rationale for drone strikes called on the administration to release the full details behind the CIA’s decision to attack two sites in Pakistan resulting in the accidental deaths of the two hostages.

“I left the administration in January 2013 and know nothing about how this recent case unfolded,” Harold Koh, a former legal adviser to the State Department, told the Guardian in an email, “but yes, plainly, the Obama administration should release the factual record regarding the January 2015 strikes that killed two hostages.”

 

A controversial figure for his role in devising the US justification for the targeted killing of an American member of al-Qaida, Koh is now a law professor at New York University.