WASHINGTON: A US Republican Senator says that US-led unmanned drone strikes have killed around 4,700 people including civilians, a number that exceeds some independent estimates of the toll.
“We’ve killed 4, 700,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of the drone raids, AFP reported on Wednesday.
“Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we’re at war, and we’ve taken out some very senior members of al Qaeda,” Graham added.
US officials refuse to publicly discuss any details of the covert program; therefore death toll from hundreds of drone strikes against suspected al Qaeda militants in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere remains a mystery.
However, this is the first time a US official has referred to a total number of fatalities in the drone strikes.
Graham’s office did not dispute his reported remarks but suggested that he had not divulged any official, classified government figure.
A spokesman told AFP that the senator “quoted the figure that has been publicly reported and disseminated on cable news.” His remark was unprecedented, as US officials have sometimes hinted at estimates of civilian casualties but never referred to a total body count.
Several organizations have tried to calculate how many militants and civilians may have been killed in drone strikes since 2004 but have arrived at a wide range of numbers.
The figure cited by Graham matches the high end of a tally by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. It says the number killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia is between 3,072 and 4,756.
The Washington-based New America Foundation says there have been 350 US drone strikes since 2004, most of them during Barack Obama’s presidency. And the foundation estimates the death toll at between 1,963 and 3,293, with 261 to 305 civilians killed.
Graham defended Obama’s reliance on the unmanned, robotic aircraft, despite criticism from lawmakers and rights advocates who have questioned the secrecy and the legality of the drone attacks, saying “It’s a weapon that needs to be used.”
“It’s a tactical weapon. A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle that is now armed,” Graham said.
Drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere are covert attacks overseen by the CIA, while bombing runs by drones in Afghanistan fall under the US military’s authority and are not cloaked in secrecy.
The Obama administration has insisted the “targeted killings” are “a last resort” against those plotting to attack the United States but who cannot be captured.
However, opponents say drone strikes amount to extrajudicial assassinations that sow resentment among local populations and lack oversight by Congress or courts.
