The Obama administration is preparing to
announce as early as next week that it believes around 100 civilians
have died in nearly 500 U.S. drone strikes since 2009, U.S. officials
tell NBC News.
That is a far lower estimate than those of the three major independent groups that seek to track the secret operations in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. The highest estimate among those groups puts civilian casualties from drones at over 1,000.
The disclosure, which is expected to cite an estimated range of civilian deaths lower and higher than 100, represents the latest attempt by the president to fulfill his promises to be more transparent about the controversial secret killing program he ramped up when he took office. Despite those vows, officials continue to release very little information about the targets and circumstances of each lethal strike.
That is a far lower estimate than those of the three major independent groups that seek to track the secret operations in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. The highest estimate among those groups puts civilian casualties from drones at over 1,000.
The disclosure, which is expected to cite an estimated range of civilian deaths lower and higher than 100, represents the latest attempt by the president to fulfill his promises to be more transparent about the controversial secret killing program he ramped up when he took office. Despite those vows, officials continue to release very little information about the targets and circumstances of each lethal strike.
Human rights groups praised the move, but remain skeptical about the numbers.
"This is a big victory," said Naureen Shah, who directs Amnesty International's human rights program in Washington. However, she added, "It's impossible to assess their claims without the administration acknowledging or denying the specific cases that we've put forward."
U.S. officials have credited drone strikes carried out by the CIA and the military's Joint Special Operations Command with putting al Qaeda on its heels. Officials have long said that Hellfire missiles fired from unmanned drones are far more precise than conventional bombing when it comes to targeting terrorists living among civilians.
The disparity in the civilian casualty numbers, however, is likely to fuel the debate about whether U.S. officials can be trusted to grade their own work based on evidence no one else can see.
It is not seriously disputed that U.S. targeted killing operations outside of active war zones have become less frequent and more discriminating in recent years. The main reason for that, officials say, was Obama's decision in 2013 to impose rules that such attacks may only be carried out if there is a "near certainty" that civilians won't be harmed.
But when it comes to the overall count since Obama took office, which includes a period from 2009 to 2011 when Obama authorized a flurry of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, there is a stark disagreement.
The Long War Journal, a project of the right-leaning Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank whose numbers tend to be the most favorable for U.S. policy-makers, tallied 207 civilian casualties since 2009 in 492 strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. That does not include strikes in Somalia and Libya, which the Obama administration includes in its count of around 100.
New America, a left-leaning Washington think tank, counted between 244 and 294 civilians killed in 547 attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that as many as 1068 civilians were killed in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the vast majority since 2009.
Obama administration officials point out that those groups rely mainly on local media reports, which they argue are often distorted.
For example, current and former officials tell NBC News, Pakistan has on several occasions conducted its own airstrikes against militants and then attributed those attacks to CIA drones. Pakistani media reports based on those leaks then fuel the independent counts.
For example, JSOC in 2013 carried out a strike in Yemen that killed 12 people who were deemed militants. But local officials said the strike hit a wedding party, and CIA analysts could not say with confidence that all the dead were combatants.
