AP FILE - This Jan. 31, 2010 file photo
shows an unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field,
southern Afghanistan, on a moon-lit night. After a decade of costly
conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American way of war is evolving
toward less brawn, more guile. Drone aircraft spy on and attack
terrorists with no pilot in harm's way. Small teams of special
operations troops quietly train and advise foreign forces. Viruses sent
from computers to foreign networks strike silently, with no American
fingerprint. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2011 file photo, John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, speaks in Washington. After a decade of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American way of war is evolving toward less brawn, more guile. Drone aircraft spy on and attack terrorists with no pilot in harm's way. Small teams of special operations troops quietly train and advise foreign forces. Viruses sent from computers to foreign networks strike silently, with no American fingerprint. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) — AP
WASHINGTON — After a decade of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American way of war is evolving toward less brawn, more guile.
Chart shows the number of air attacks in Pakistan — AP
Drone aircraft spy on and attack terrorists with no pilot in harm's
way. Small teams of special operations troops quietly train and advise
foreign forces. Viruses sent from computers to foreign networks strike
silently, with no American fingerprint.
It's war in the shadows, with the U.S. public largely in the dark.
In Pakistan, armed drones, not U.S. ground troops or B-52 bombers, are
hunting down al-Qaida terrorists, and a CIA-run raid of Osama bin
Laden's hide-out was executed by a stealthy team of Navy SEALs.
In Yemen, drones and several dozen U.S. military advisers are trying to
help the government tip the balance against an al-Qaida offshoot that
harbors hopes of one day attacking the U.S. homeland.
In Somalia, the Horn of Africa country that has not had a fully
functioning government since 1991, President Barack Obama secretly has
authorized two drone strikes and two commando raids against terrorists.
In Iran, surveillance drones have kept an eye on nuclear activities
while a computer attack reportedly has infected its nuclear enrichment
facilities with a virus, possibly delaying the day when the U.S. or
Israel might feel compelled to drop real bombs on Iran and risk a wider
war in the Middle East.
The high-tech warfare allows Obama to target what the administration
sees as the greatest threats to U.S. security, without the cost and
liabilities of sending a swarm of ground troops to capture territory;
some of them almost certainly would come home maimed or dead.
But it also raises questions about accountability and the implications
for international norms regarding the use of force outside of
traditional armed conflict. The White House took an incremental step
Friday toward greater openness about the basic dimensions of its shadowy
wars by telling Congress for the first time that the U.S. military has
been launching lethal attacks on terrorist targets in Somalia and Yemen.
It did not mention drones, and its admission did not apply to CIA
operations.
"Congressional oversight of these operations appears to be cursory and
insufficient," said Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy
issues for the Federation of American Scientists, a private group.
"It is Congress' responsibility to declare war under the Constitution,
but instead it appears to have adopted a largely passive role while the
executive takes the initiative in war fighting," Aftergood said in an
interview.
That's partly because lawmakers relinquished their authority by passing
a law just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that essentially
granted the White House open-ended authority for armed action against
al-Qaida.
Secret wars are not new.
For decades, the CIA has carried out covert operations abroad at the
president's direction and with congressional notice. It armed the
mujahedeen in Afghanistan who fought Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, for
example. In recent years the U.S. military's secretive commando units
have operated more widely, even in countries where the U.S. is not at
war, and that's blurred the lines between the intelligence and military
spheres.
In this shroud of secrecy, leaks to the news media of classified
details about certain covert operations have led to charges that the
White House orchestrated the revelations to bolster Obama's national
security credentials and thereby improve his re-election chances. The
White House has denied the accusations.
The leaks exposed details of U.S. computer virus attacks on Iran's
nuclear program, the foiling of an al-Qaida bomb plot targeting U.S.
aircraft, and other secret operations.
Two U.S. attorneys are heading separate FBI investigations into leaks
of national security information, and Congress is conducting its own
probe.
It's not just the news media that has pressed the administration for information about its shadowy wars.
Some in Congress, particularly those lawmakers most skeptical of the
need for U.S. foreign interventions, are objecting to the
administration's drone wars. They are demanding a fuller explanation of
how, for example, drone strikes are authorized and executed in cases in
which the identity of the targeted terrorist is not confirmed.
"Our drone campaigns already have virtually no transparency,
accountability or oversight," Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and 25 other
mostly anti-war members of Congress wrote Obama on Tuesday.
A few dozen lawmakers are briefed on the CIA's covert action and
clandestine military activity, and some may ask to review drone strike
video and be granted access to after-action reports on strikes and other
clandestine actions. But until two months ago, the administration had
not formally confirmed in public its use of armed drones.
In an April speech in Washington, Obama's counterterrorism chief, John
Brennan, acknowledged that despite presidential assurances of a
judicious use of force against terrorists, some still question the
legality of drone strikes.
"So let me say it as simply as I can: Yes, in full accordance with the
law - and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and
to save American lives - the United States government conducts targeted
strikes against specific al-Qaida terrorists, sometimes using remotely
piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones," he said.
President George W. Bush authorized drone strikes in Pakistan and
elsewhere, but Obama has vastly increased the numbers. According to Bill
Roggio of The Long War Journal, an online publication that tracks U.S.
counterterrorism operations, the U.S. under Obama has carried out an
estimated 254 drone strikes in Pakistan alone. That compares with 47
strikes during the Bush administration.
In at least one case the target was an American. Anwar al-Awlaki, an
al-Qaida leader, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in
September.
According to a White House list released late last year, U.S.
counterterrorism operations have removed more than 30 terrorist leaders
around the globe. They include al-Qaida in East Africa "planner" Saleh
Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was killed in a helicopter strike in Somalia.
The drone campaign is highly unpopular overseas.
A Pew Research Center survey on the U.S. image abroad found that in 17
of 21 countries surveyed, more than half of the people disapproved of
U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders in such places as
Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. In the U.S., 62 percent approved of the
drone campaign, making American public opinion the clear exception.
The U.S. use of cyberweapons, like viruses that sabotage computer
networks or other high-tech tools that can invade computers and steal
data, is even more closely shielded by official secrecy and, arguably,
less well understood.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been a leading critic of the
administration's handling of information about using computers as a tool
of war.
"I think that cyberattacks are one of the greatest threats that we
face," McCain said in a recent interview, "and we have a very divided
and not very well-informed Congress addressing it."
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and national security officials often
talk publicly about improving U.S. defenses against cyberattack, not
only on U.S. government computer systems but also against defense
contractors and other private networks linked, for example, to the U.S.
financial system or electrical grid. Left largely unexplained is the
U.S. capacity to use computer viruses and other cyberweapons against
foreign targets.
In the view of some, the White House has cut Congress out of the loop, even in the realm of overt warfare.
Sen. James Webb, D-Va., who saw combat in Vietnam as a Marine,
introduced legislation last month that would require that the president
seek congressional approval before committing U.S. forces in civil
conflicts, such as last year's armed intervention in Libya, in which
there is no imminent security threat to the U.S.
"Year by year, skirmish by skirmish, the role of the Congress in
determining where the U.S. military would operate, and when the awesome
power of our weapon systems would be unleashed has diminished," Webb
said.
By ROBERT BURNS, LOLITA C. BALDOR and KIMBERLY DOZIER, Associated Press
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