(Image source: Wired )


BY JESSICA SIBERT
ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN


What may have been one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington is now out in the open after President Obama’s Monday night online town hall.

During the Google+ Hangout , Obama admitted to the use of “covert” drone strikes in Pakistan -- but also made a point to note the precision and caution that go along with each mission. (Video source: ABC )

“I think there’s this perception somehow that we’re sending in a bunch of strikes willy-nilly. This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists.”

A blogger for CNN says it was an unusual discussion about the CIA’s very secretive drone program, even if the American drones were made pretty obvious to the public.

“U.S. officials rarely admit publicly to the active use of drones to hunt down Al Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan. One reason is out of deference to the Pakistan, whose government relents to the drone flights even while publicly condemning it because the Pakistani populace is so against the strikes.”

But a blogger for the Telegraph says Mr. Obama’s admission of the obvious was probably not made with Pakistan in mind.

“The new openness is probably the result of a strike last year that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen who rose to fame as an online propagandist for al-Qaeda. It left Obama with an awkward legal question about the rights and wrongs of killing Americans overseas and last night's admission may well be part of a new policy.”

In the Google+ town hall -- President Obama said drone strikes haven’t caused a quote “huge number of civilian casualties. But according to The New America Foundation -- drone strikes in Pakistan have actually killed as many as 2,700 people in the past eight years .

 

Still --   a BBC reporter based in Islamabad tells the The Takeaway Mr. Obama is more or less right -- he says the Pakistani government is just looking for excuses to form an opposition.

“I think it’s become a suitable policy option for the Pakistani security establishment as well to prop up some type of voice that would oppose these strikes.”

Following President Obama’s remarks, a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman said the attacks are “unlawful, counterproductive, and hence unacceptable...”