Influential U.S. advisor takes aim at Pakistan drone war

For months, Pakistani leaders have complained, loudly, about American drone strikes on their territory. Now, an influential advisor to American policymakers says he is raising his voice against the unmanned attacks, too. "Unilateral strikes against targets inside Pakistan, whatever other purpose they might serve, have an unarguably and entirely negative effect on Pakistani stability," Dr. David Kilcullen writes in Monday's Small Wars Journal blog. Kilcullen, a former Australian colonel, is considered one of the leading thinkers on counterinsurgency, providing advice to both Gen. David Petraeus and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have struck targets in Pakistan at least 40 times in the last year. The most recent attack came just days after President Obama was sworn in. Twenty-two people were reportedly kiled in the strike. U.S. officials say the drones have taken out dozens of militants who were undermining American efforts in the region. Perhaps so, Kilcullen acknowkedges. But using drones to attack those militants "increase the number and radicalism of Pakistanis who support extremism, and thus undermine the key strategic program of building a willing and capable partner in Pakistan," he writes, in an edited version of his recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony. Kilcullen doesn't think all UAV attacks are bad. "While ever al Qa'ida remains active and can threaten the international community from bases within Pakistan, the need to strike terrorist targets on Pakistani territory will remain. But our policy should be to treat this as an absolute, and rarely invoked, last resort," he notes. All strikes should be carried out in consultation with Islamabad, in "an area outside of effective Pakistani sovereignty," and a time when "the target is positively identified and clearly distinguishable from surrounding populations, reducing the risk of collateral damage to a level acceptable to elected political leaders." That last bit may be the toughest part. Before U.S. Air Force drones hit targets in Afghanistan as part of pre-planned operations, lawyers and intelligence officers in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center match it with cell-phone intercepts, informants' tips, and "pattern of life" analyses on the intended targets. Other airmen estimate the likelihood of civilian casualties, with "Raindrop," a classified simulation tool that models local traffic patterns, structural compositions, and bomb blast patterns. It's a process so rigorous that even Human Rights Watch says that the chances of civilian casualties are near nil, when it's followed.(The problems -- and the slaying of innocents -- come during last-minute, so-called "troops-in-contact" scenarios.) But the UAV attacks in Pakistan are spearheaded by the CIA, not the Air Force. It's unclear whether the spy agency takes the same precautions, when it unleashes the killer drones.