New CIA Chief Hints That Predator Strikes in Pakistan Will Continue

The Obama administration appears to be continuing many of its predecessor's tactics in the fight against suspected al Qaeda forces in the tribal regions of Pakistan, including a controversial program using unmanned airplanes to strike at key targets. U.S. intelligence officials credit the highly classified program with the killing of key terrorist leaders, but it has also sparked a strong backlash in Pakistan for causing numerous civilian casualties.

The CIA's new director, Leon Panetta, refused to address specifics yesterday about the airstrikes and U.S.-Pakistan relations, nor would he comment on reports that the drones were launched from air bases inside Pakistan. But when asked about the Predator drone strikes inside Pakistan and the U.S. strategy in the tribal areas, he made it clear that the nation's counterterrorism efforts remained on a steady course.

"Nothing has changed our efforts to go after terrorists, and nothing will change those efforts," he told a small group of reporters. "We are continuing at a level of action that is on a par with the challenges we are confronting. None of that has diminished, and none of it will."

The program isn't officially acknowledged by the U.S. government, but the CIA plays a central role in coordinating the program with the quiet assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service. The strikes are aimed not only at killing al Qaeda senior leaders but also at turning their Pashtun hosts against them, senior U.S. officials say.

By some accounts, the strikes have killed some 80 members of the terrorist organization and perhaps as many as 140 civilians. Last year, the Bush administration launched up to 37 strikes in the region, killing more than 200 people.

Meanwhile, outrage in Afghanistan and particularly Pakistan has grown. For months, government officials in Islamabad have been openly critical about the U.S. strikes, and the streets have sometimes filled with demonstrators. Pakistani officials complain that the strikes may be reducing al Qaeda's global reach, but they are also putting Pakistan's fragile government in peril.

Imagine Pakistani and U.S. chagrin then, a few weeks ago, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a public hearing she understood that the drone missions "are flown out of a Pakistani base." A search of Google Earth by journalists soon revealed what appeared to be drones sitting on a runway at an air base inside Pakistan.

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