Two Republicans called Sunday for the military to carry out drone strikes instead of the CIA, a few days after the Obama administration admitted strikes accidentally killed two westerners.
Arizona Sen. John McCain said the unintentional deaths were “probably preventable” and raises the question of whether the strikes should continue and if so, which agency or department should carry them out.
It made sense for the CIA to head them up when the U.S. was first starting to use drones, McCain said, but he feels that the operation has grown so big it should now be housed within the Department of Defense.
“I can understand when it was a very small operation why it would be done by an intelligence agency,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But now it’s reached the point where it’s an integral part of the conflict. I think it should be administered by the [Department of Defense].”
The White House disclosed Thursday that two hostages died during a strike on an Al Qaeda target in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. American Warren Weinstein had been held by the terrorist group since 2011 and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian, was kidnapped in 2012.
While saying he regrets the fatalities, President Obama also defended the strikes, saying they were fully consistent with the guidelines for conducting counterterrorism efforts. But the announcement has refueled Republican insistence that the CIA shouldn’t be conducting drone strikes at all.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is weighing a presidential bid, also told CNN he thinks drone operations should be based at the defense department.
“I don’t believe the drone program oughta be run out of the CIA,” he said. “It should be operated exclusively out of the Pentagon.”
