CIA Seeks White House Backing for More Drones

Petraeus Pushes for Bigger Drone Fleet

With an eye on launching more strikes in more nations, the CIA is pushing for White House approval to acquire yet more attack drones to add to their inventory, saying that they need to be able to expand quickly into Northern Africa without pulling drones out of Pakistan.

The effort reflects the CIA’s growing efforts to revamp itself as an “assassination agency” and leave the espionage business to somebody else. The only resistance in the US government seems to be from the Pentagon, who wants to keep the corner on the market of killing people.

Officials seem to be citing the Benghazi Consulate attack as justification now for the drones, but of course the CIA’s push for more drones began long before last month’s attack.

Having CIA drones looming over major Libyan cities is a grim prospect, particularly with their checkered history of killing civilians in their attacks in Yemen and Pakistan, where thousands have been killed but only a few dozen have ever been conclusively named.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.