IT has long been suspected that the US has exaggerated the accuracy of its drone strikes programme, with critics claiming that a far greater number of civilians have been killed than admitted by the US government. Now, with new revelations by The Intercept, an online publication created to report on the Edward Snowden documents and other US national security-related issues, it has become clear that the drone programme is dangerously flawed. While the missiles themselves may be accurate in the sense that they strike what they are meant to, there are significant problems with the intelligence on which targets are hit. From errors in target selection — killing the wrong person — to the circumstances in which a target is struck — how many other individuals are nearby and whether they can be considered legitimate targets — the programme appears to be rife with problems. What is particularly alarming is that new documents concern drone strikes carried out by the US military — which was thought to be relatively more transparent and, therefore, rigorous in its application of force than the ultra-secretive CIA campaign believed to control drone strikes inside Pakistan.

Now, with Pakistan having deployed and used an armed drone in Fata already, the mistakes of the US programme are perhaps being replicated here. The American experience suggests that when a new platform for waging war is acquired and then used against the most serious of national security threats in remote areas, troubling results will usually follow. Armed drones can be useful and can have a significant impact; the first three leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, for example, Nek Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud and Hakeemullah Mehsud, are all believed to have been killed by US-operated drones. But there are genuine risks, posed not least by the backlash that can be caused by errant missile strikes. In the Pakistani case, that problem is compounded by the near-total absence of independent and verifiable battlefield information. The absence of public information tends to encourage impunity, a great deal of which can come from the belief that a just war is being waged against mortal enemies of the state. The US programme includes the president himself in the chain of command and yet many civilians are believed to have died. In Pakistan, who is authorised to select targets and who can authorise the firing of a missile? The people deserve to know what war measures are being taken in the name of the public interest.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2015

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