Conyers Statement at Oversight Hearing on Drones

(WASHINGTON) – This morning, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a full committee oversight hearing entitled, “Drones and the War on Terror: When Can the U.S. Target Alleged American Terrorists Overseas?” Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) delivered the following statement during his opening remarks:

U.S. Representative
John Conyers, Jr.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I very much appreciate that our Committee is examining such a pressing matter:  the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or ‘drones,’ to strike at suspected terrorists abroad. 

“Let me be clear: the House Judiciary Committee has direct jurisdiction over this issue. We are the Committee in the best position to assess the serious constitutional and civil rights questions presented by the drone program. Our Committee also has direct oversight of the Department of Justice, which has issued legal opinions, albeit classified, that purport to establish the legal basis for the use of lethal force against terrorist suspects.

“Over the course of the 112^th Congress, I, along with my colleagues Representatives Jerry Nadler and Bobby Scott, wrote several letters to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to share those legal opinions with the Committee.  These letter requests were made on January 18, 2012, May 21, 2012, and December 4, 2012. Although we did not receive the requested memoranda, the Justice Department did provide us with a copy of the recently-publicized white paper on the targeted killing of U.S. citizens.  Unfortunately, the white paper raises more questions than it answers, and does little to address our concerns regarding the broader use of lethal force against terrorist suspects. On February 8, 2013, Chairman Goodlatte and I, together with Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner, Trent Franks, Jerry Nadler, and Bobby Scott, wrote to President Obama to renew our request for all legal opinions related to the drone programs. 

“I am pleased that we have reached a clear, bipartisan consensus on this issue: this Committee requires those documents to fulfill its oversight responsibilities, and we will work together to convince the Administration to satisfy our request.

“The need for oversight is clear.  I am not convinced, as the title of the hearing may suggest, by the Administration’s legal rationale for the targeted killing of a United States citizen overseas.  The white paper describes a balancing test for Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights tilted so far in favor of government interests that a potential target appears to have little chance at meaningful due process when he is nominated to the so-called ‘kill list.’

“I also remain unconvinced about the targeted killing of terrorist suspects who are non-citizens. Although the Administration appears to rest its claim of authority on the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed by Congress in 2001, it is not clear to me that Congress intended to sanction lethal force against a loosely-defined enemy in an indefinite conflict with no borders and no discernible end date.

“And I remain deeply troubled by the widely reported use of so-called ‘signature strikes,’ where suspects display suspicious activity but their identities are unknown prior to the government’s use of lethal force against them. To date, the Administration has not even acknowledged that this program exists—let alone provided this Committee with the information it requires to examine the legality of the program.

“I am, of course, aware that drones offer a relatively precise means for targeting our enemies.  If used responsibly, they can limit civilian casualties and do so without putting additional American troops in danger. But we must be mindful that the rest of the world is watching us.

“In a recent interview, General Stanley McChrystal—the principal architect of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan—reminded us that ‘the resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes . . . is much greater than the average American appreciates.’ He continued, ‘They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who have never seen one or seen the effects of one.’

“No matter how far removed we are from the battlefield, we must remember that it still feels like war when the missiles strike. And, the United States will not be the only nation with this tactical capability for much longer. Accordingly, the decisions we make—the process this Committee finds necessary before our government may lawfully kill a suspected terrorist, whether or not that suspect is a citizen—will set the example for those who follow.

“I thank the Chairman, and I yield back.”

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Kucinich, Conyers look to block White House effort to expand drone strikes

Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) are pushing legislation that would roll back a recent White House decision to expand drone strikes against terrorist targets around the world.

 The legislation was introduced as an amendment to the House version of the 2013 defense budget bill. House members plan to bring that amendment and others up for floor debate on Thursday.

 If approved, the amendment would block members of the Pentagon's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) from carrying out unmanned airstrikes under newly rewritten White House authority on those operations. Specifically, the amendment would stop JSOC members from participating in combat operations "in which an unmanned aerial vehicle is used to attack a target who's identity is unknown or is based solely on patters of behavior.

 The Kucinich-Conyers legislation flies directly in the face of the Obama administration's decision to execute those types of airstrikes, particularly against suspected terror targets in Yemen.

 In April, the White House approved a CIA request that would allow the agency to hit terror targets tied to al Qaeda's Yemen cell, known as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), even when it doesn’t know their identities.

 Before the new rules, U.S. military and intelligence planners used classified lists of known terror targets to plan unmanned airstrikes. Additionally, those strikes could not be executed until U.S. intelligence confirmed a target was at a certain location.

 Now, American drones can take out targets where suspected terrorists could be at a certain locations, without confirmation of their actual presence. Targets in areas like Yemen can also be hit if U.S. intelligence picks up signs terror groups in that area are planning an attack against American targets, under the new White House rules.

 The newly empowered U.S. drone campaign has produced significant results, particularly against AQAP. A U.S-led airstrike on May 3 against an al Qaeda-run training camp in southern Yemen Wednesday ended in the deaths of 15 militants.

 Yemeni al Qaeda leader Fahd al-Quso, who was wanted in connection with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, was killed by a CIA drone strike in eastern Yemen on May 5.

 Weeks before the al-Quso strike, unmanned drones likely operated by the CIA killed a dozen members of AQAP in Abyan province in southern Yemen.

 Information that led to the al-Quso strike reportedly came from a Saudi double agent who had infiltrated the AQAP ranks. That agent, who was working for U.S., British and Saudi intelligence, also reportedly helped foil an AQAP plot to blow up an American commercial airliner to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death. 

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