New York Times: Trump Poised to Drop Some Limits on Drone Strikes and Commando Raids
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to dismantle key Obama-era limits on drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional battlefields, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations. The changes would lay the groundwork for possible counterterrorism missions in countries where Islamic militants are active but the United States has not previously tried to kill or capture them.
President Trump’s top national security advisers have proposed relaxing two rules, the officials said. First, the targets of kill missions by the military and the C.I.A., now generally limited to high-level militants deemed to pose a “continuing and imminent threat” to Americans, would be expanded to include foot-soldier jihadists with no special skills or leadership roles. And second, proposed drone attacks and raids would no longer undergo high-level vetting.
But administration officials have also agreed that they should keep in place one important constraint for such attacks: a requirement of “near certainty” that no civilian bystanders will be killed.
Read more ....
Update: Trump’s New Drone Strike Policy: What’s Any Different? Why It Matters (Luke Hartig, Just Security).
WNU Editor: Will the lawyers still be present in the command and control centers .... apparently yes. Can the enemy use civilians as shields even if the civilians are supporting the enemy .... apparently yes. So what is different is that lower level targets are now targets, and the vetting (by the lawyers) will be less intense (whatever that means).
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