Drone killing

CIA Exemption from President’s Restrictions on Drone Strikes in Pakistan

In May 2013, President Obama announced a new directive which presumably places heavy restrictions on drone strikes and other lethal operations outside of the Afghan theater. One may have thought the new rules, codified in a “Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG),” applied to all agencies conducting drone strikes. Think again. According to an important story by the Wall Street Journal’s Adam Entous, the President attached a “classified addendum” to the directive which exempts CIA operations in Pakistan from one of those restrictions, namely, the requirement that a target pose an “imminent threat.” (The PPG states: “the United States will use lethal force only against a target that poses a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.”)