CIA Director On Predator Strikes: The Only Way To Disrupt Al Qaeda

Photo: Leon Panetta, director of Central Intelligence Agency, listens at a luncheon at the Pacific Council On International Policy in Los Angeles, California. Panetta defended the use of unmanned aircraft to target Al-Qaeda militants on Monday and said President Barack Obama's policies had severely disrupted the network's leadership. (AFP/Getty Images/Kevork Djansezian)

CIA Chief Says Al-Qaeda Disrupted, Defends Drones -- Yahoo News/AFP

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – CIA director Leon Panetta defended the use of unmanned aircraft to target Al-Qaeda militants on Monday and said President Barack Obama's policies had severely disrupted the network's leadership.

In his first speech since taking over as head of the Central Intelligence Agency in February, Panetta told a luncheon in Los Angeles that counter-terrorism and defeating Al-Qaeda remained the agency's top priority.

Read more ....

Military personnel adjust the placement of the U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator aircraft at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, Calif., June 25, 2008. The air national guardsmen who fly Predator drones over Iraq are fighting a war from the safety of Southern California, but confronting some of the same wartime stresses as their comrades on the battlefield. AP Photo

CIA Chief: Drones ‘Only Game in Town’ for Stopping Al Qaeda -- The Danger Room

Call off the drones? No chance, CIA director Leon Panetta says. Not only are the spy agency’s unmanned aircraft “very effective” in taking out suspected militants in Pakistan, he told the Pacific Council on International Policy yesterday. “Very frankly, it’s the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership.”

For months, counterinsurgency specialists have been warning that the drone attacks in Pakistan could turn public opinion against the government there. “If we want to strengthen our friends and weaken our enemies in Pakistan, bombing Pakistani villages with unmanned drones is totally counterproductive,” Dr. David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency adviser to both Gen. David Petraeus and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Danger Room in February.

Read more ....

My Comment: David Kilcullen has voiced his concerns that predator strikes only emboldens Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan. It appears that CIA Director Panetta and his masters in Washington disagree.