An array of experts testified on Capitol Hill about the vital need for oversight of the U.S. drone program following a series of mistakes that have cast a shadow over it.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday about the costs of U.S. drone strikes featuring Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU’s National Security Project; Radhya al Mutawakel, the chairwoman for Mwatana for Human Rights; Stephen Pomper, the chief of policy for the International Crisis Group; retired Air Force Gen. John P. Jumper; and former Ambassador-at-Large Nathan Sales.
The experts from the GOP side spoke “about the importance of maintaining the counterterrorism tool of drone strikes,” as Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the committee, said during his opening remarks, while the Democrats’ witnesses highlighted America’s failings in transparency and the prevention of civilian deaths.
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“Presidents of both parties have adopted a costly war-based approach to national security and counterterrorism policy that still has no clear endgame in sight,” Shamsi said. “They have wrongly used wartime legal justifications to use lethal force in countries where we were not or are not at war, often in secret. In doing so, the Executive Branch has crossed the lines between wartime and peacetime powers that are essential to maintain the rule of law, democratic accountability, and the right to life.”
The ACLU is representing the aid organization Nutrition and Education International, which employed Zemari Ahmadi, the Afghan aid worker who was targeted in the Aug. 29 drone strike that killed him and nine other civilians including seven children. The Pentagon later acknowledged that Ahmadi did not have terrorist ties or pose a threat to the U.S. troops executing an emergency evacuation in Afghanistan at the end of August. No military personnel were punished legally or professionally for the strike.
“I’ve heard from my clients who are fathers the horror of having to gather up their children’s body parts. I’ve listened to my client, Anisa Ahmadi, struggle to breathe through her despair at the death of her husband, an aid worker for the American NGO Nutrition and Education International, three of her sons, and one of her grandchildren. My clients’ grief is compounded by the fact that, for 19 days, our government kept up false and stigmatizing allegations about their loved ones, wrongly asserting the strike was ‘righteous’ and ‘successful’ against ISIS operatives,” she said in her written testimony. “The falsehoods are still widespread in Afghanistan today and my clients remain in daily and imminent danger.”
Sales, who said in his written testimony that airstrikes are an “important component of an integrated counterterrorism strategy,” also acknowledged that the “United States must live up to the highest standards of transparency and accountability,” and al Mutawakel discussed the toll that they have taken on people who live in the communities where strikes are prevalent.
Al Mutawakel, in written testimony, referenced the “psychological toll on survivors and on impacted communities” and said that people “have been forced to live with U.S. strikes and the possibility that these strikes may kill civilians, including themselves or their family members, for many years.”
The hearing took a sharp turn when it was Sen. Lindsey Graham’s time to interview the witnesses. He asked Shamsi if she believed that al Qaeda and the Islamic State would strike the U.S. if they had the capability, and she didn’t provide an answer when the South Carolina Republican demanded a “yes” or “no” answer.
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this,” Graham responded. “You’ve got a witness that can’t answer the question: ‘Would Al Qaeda and ISIS strike the American people if they could?’ Of course, they would. Afghanistan is a breeding ground for another attack on our country. The border is broken. As much as I respect the Chairman, I can’t believe we’re focusing on closing Gitmo at a time when international terrorism is getting stronger.”
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Last month, Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the Department of Defense would immediately establish a civilian protection center, among other changes, some of which will come in the months to follow. The announcement came in the weeks and months after the military faced allegations of not doing enough to prevent civilian casualties.
There are also investigations into a March 18, 2019, strike that killed 80 people in Syria and one on a Dec. 3, 2021, strike in Syria that had reports of civilian casualties.
