LA Times story on Predator and Reaper campaigns

Drones have transformed combat against Islamic militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, the rugged belt of villages and badlands hugging the border with Afghanistan. Since 2004, analysts say, Predator and Reaper drones operated by the CIA have killed at least 15 senior Al Qaeda commanders, as well as several top Pakistani Taliban leaders and hundreds of fighters.

The small unmanned planes can hover for hours while gathering infrared camera footage. Onboard lasers pinpoint targets for supersonic Hellfire missiles or 500-pound bombs. The attacks cost no American lives.

But civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or Al Qaeda also die in these strikes. Calculations of how many vary widely, from fewer than 30 since 2008 to more than 700 just last year. The Pakistani government restricts access to the tribal areas and has only nominal control there. Militants seal off attack sites, and victims are buried quickly, according to Islamic tradition.

Still, the deaths inflame anti-American suspicions, particularly among middle- and upper-class Pakistanis outside the tribal areas, many of whom are convinced that Washington wants to colonize their country or wrest control of its nuclear arsenal.

Inside the poor, isolated and politically powerless tribal areas, the reaction is more nuanced. Some say bluntly that they would avenge the killing of their relatives, if they could only reach those remotely piloting the drones buzzing thousands of feet over their heads. Others say they understand the need for the program, and even support it if it helps drive out the militants. They loathe the constraints the Taliban places on everyday life.

But many don't understand why a technology that pinpoints its targets with lasers and infrared cameras can also kill innocents. And they would prefer that Pakistanis, rather than Americans, were flying the drones.

The CIA's covert Predator and Reaper drone missions over Pakistan are separate from the U.S. military's unmanned flights in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. military officials say.

Pakistanis are in some ways partners in the effort. U.S. conventional forces are banned from the tribal areas, but Pakistan tacitly acquiesces to Washington's reliance on drones to strike militant camps and hide-outs. The U.S. also relies heavily on the Pakistani military and intelligence services for on-the-ground information. If the intelligence is faulty, or if civilians are near militant targets, civilian casualties are almost inevitable.

NYT: U.S. Begins Inquiry on Spy Network in Pakistan

Mark Mazetti reports April 27 for The New York Times on the peculiar case of
Michael D. Furlong. See also March 14 piece by Mazetti with Dexter Filkins,"Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants" (link provided in story below)

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has opened an inquiry into whether a top Defense Department official violated Pentagon rules by setting up a network of private contractors to gather intelligence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday that Mr. Gates was also demanding greater oversight over the millions of dollars the Defense Department spent annually to carry out “information operations,” to ensure that such missions did not “stray off course” into secret intelligence collection.

At the center of the Pentagon inquiry is Michael D. Furlong, a civilian official working for the Air Force who last year used a web of private contractors to clandestinely gather intelligence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to current and former government officials, some of that information was turned over to Special Operations troops to help fight militants.

Some American officials think that Mr. Furlong may have financed the secret network by improperly diverting money from an overt program to gather information about the tribal structures and political dynamics in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon’s inspector general is already conducting a criminal investigation into the matter. One focus of that investigation is whether Mr. Furlong engaged in contract fraud by channeling contracts to International Media Ventures, a media technology firm that American officials say Mr. Furlong used in the intelligence-gathering effort.

But even if no laws were broken, officials said, the inquiry announced on Tuesday will more clearly define the Pentagon’s boundaries in intelligence operations, and determine whether Mr. Furlong’s outsourcing of intelligence collection violated Pentagon rules.

The inquiry will be led by Mr. Gates’s senior aide in charge of intelligence oversight.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that a Pentagon team set up to do a quick study of Defense Department information operations — the area of warfare where information is used to achieve military ends — had found that the programs were well managed and had unearthed no evidence of operations similar to the one set up by Mr. Furlong.

“There do not seem to be any other alleged rogue information operations under way,” he said.

Since The New York Times last month revealed details about his contractor network, Mr. Furlong has given only one interview, telling a newspaper in San Antonio that all of his actions had been approved by senior military officials. He did not provide the names of these officials.

One of the contractors Mr. Furlong hired, officials said, was Duane Clarridge, a former C.I.A. officer whose history includes an indictment and subsequent presidential pardon for his role in the Iran-contra scandal.

Mr. Morrell said that despite the investigations into the Furlong case, Mr. Gates thought that information operations remained an essential tool for the military to carry out its strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When a Republican Calls for the CIA to be "Taken Out," the World is Most Certainly On Its Ear

Republican representative Ron Paul took an approach to the Central Intelligence Agency, its involvement in U.S. Military operations in the Middle East and its shady history regarding narcotrafficking seldom if ever heard from fellow statesmen the weekend of Jan. 17 in Atlanta.

During an annual presentation to members of Paul's Campaign for Liberty at its conference in Atlanta, he underlined the importance to the U.S. mission of removing CIA operatives and private contractors like the soldiers employed by the scandalized security firm formerly known as Blackwater, Inc.

This post appeared on RawStory Jan. 20 and is accompanied by a YouTube video segment of Paul's presentation.

Ron Paul and the CIA on rawstory.com