Senators Urge Obama to Use Armed Drones to Fight ISIS

Senators Burr and Feinstein want to allow the CIA to use armed drones in the fight against ISIS. Obama, however, doesn't want the CIA to covertly use drones in this way so he says the military should be the ones to use weaponized drones. The problem is that the CIA claims there have been missed opportunities to kill terrorists because of their newly attained status of "information gatherers" only. The CIA used to operate the weaponized Drone program.

As ISIS claims responsibility for its second devastating terror attack against the West in six months, a dispute is playing out in Washington over whether the CIA should be using armed drones to kill the group's leaders, NBC News has learned. President Obama has ordered that the military, not the CIA, use drones to track and kill high-value ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria, with the CIA using its own drones for intelligence gathering. But that arrangement has resulted in some missed opportunities to kill top ISIS operatives, U.S. officials tell NBC News. Now, the leaders of the Senate intelligence committee are secretly urging Obama to reconsider and allow CIA drones to be armed. The two senators, Republican Richard Burr of North Carolina and Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, made the request in a classified letter to Obama, sent before the Brussels attacks.

This is a hard call to make but I think Obama made the right one. Weaponized Drones should only be used in a military capacity. If Drones can be used to kill individual targets, how long before this technology enters the public sector and civilians start becoming targets? It might happen anyway, however. What says ATS?



www.nbcnews.com...

a reply to: lostbook

Would armed drones fall under the NRA mantra that citizens should be as well armed as the government? That is scary.

First thought, drones with 22 inch pythons punchin terrorists with american flag brass knuckles. ok back to thursday.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: lostbook

Would armed drones fall under the NRA mantra that citizens should be as well armed as the government? That is scary.

Yeah, Drones would be the ultimate kill weapon against civilians. It's a scary proposition.

I feel like adding more weapons will increase war

The US military is already using many armed drones in the fight against ISIS. So I'm not sure what the deal is here?

Just he wants the Army to keep using the drones, and not the CIA? Probably so that they don't wind up duplicating effort. Which seems quite reasonable to me.

This just your typical pissing contest over operational control. The CIA does not like to share info and want the mission for themselves instead of sharing with the military. You spend some time working in that world and that stuff gets real old real quick. Common sense goes out the door in favor of department rivalries. Most countries can not afford to have so many agencies with same assets so they have to coordinate. The US just has so much that these sort of things become what people fight over. If the military was no there then fine let the CIA do it but, with the military already there then your just wasting money doubling up assets because you do not like to share.