U.N.: CIA Should Stop Drone Attacks

Without quite calling the U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan illegal, the United Nations said in strong terms that the CIA should end its aggressive program. In a report presented on Wednesday, a senior U.N. official argued that the drones minimized American accountability and transparency. “The international community does not know when and where the CIA is authorized to kill, the criteria for individuals who may be killed, how it ensures killings are legal, and what follow-up there is when civilians are illegally killed," the report said. But the CIA maintains that the drones remain an effective method that minimizes collateral damage. “The results speak for themselves: Not even the terrorists can claim—let alone prove—that large numbers of innocent lives have been lost,” one CIA official said. “Far from it. The precision is unsurpassed in the history of human conflict.”