Wanted Dead Or... Well, Dead

The WaPo provides an interesting slant on Obama's upgraded drone wars - we are killing terrorists because we have no facilities for detaining them:

Under Obama, more targeted killings than captures in counterterrorism efforts

By Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 14, 2010; A01

When a window of opportunity opened to strike the leader of al-Qaeda in East Africa last September, U.S. Special Operations forces prepared several options. They could obliterate his vehicle with an airstrike as he drove through southern Somalia. Or they could fire from helicopters that could land at the scene to confirm the kill. Or they could try to take him alive.

The White House authorized the second option. On the morning of Sept. 14, helicopters flying from a U.S. ship off the Somali coast blew up a car carrying Saleh Ali Nabhan. While several hovered overhead, one set down long enough for troops to scoop up enough of the remains for DNA verification. Moments later, the helicopters were headed back to the ship.

The strike was considered a major success, according to senior administration and military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified operation and other sensitive matters. But the opportunity to interrogate one of the most wanted U.S. terrorism targets was gone forever.

The Nabhan decision was one of a number of similar choices the administration has faced over the past year as President Obama has escalated U.S. attacks on the leadership of al-Qaeda and its allies around the globe. The result has been dozens of targeted killings and no reports of high-value detentions.

"A number of similar choices"?  I wouldn't have guessed that these opportunities are frequent.  However, we eventually get to some disgruntled military and intelligence officials:

Although senior administration officials say that no policy determination has been made to emphasize kills over captures, several factors appear to have tipped the balance in that direction. The Obama administration has authorized such attacks more frequently than the George W. Bush administration did in its final years, including in countries where U.S. ground operations are officially unwelcome or especially dangerous. Improvements in electronic surveillance and precision targeting have made killing from a distance much more of a sure thing. At the same time, options for where to keep U.S. captives have dwindled.

...

Some military and intelligence officials, citing what they see as a new bias toward kills, questioned whether valuable intelligence is being lost in the process. "We wanted to take a prisoner," a senior military officer said of the Nabhan operation. "It was not a decision that we made."

Even during the Bush administration, "there was an inclination to 'just shoot the bastard,' " said a former intelligence official briefed on current operations. "But now there's an even greater proclivity for doing it that way. . . . We need to have the capability to snatch when the situation calls for it."

Lack of detention policy

One problem identified by those within and outside the government is the question of where to take captives apprehended outside established war zones and cooperating countries. "We've been trying to decide this for over a year," the senior military officer said. "When you don't have a detention policy or a set of facilities," he said, operational decisions become more difficult.

It's interesting that theWaPo uncovered this grumbling in the ranks.  They also note that we still capture people in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the Pakistan tribal areas are politically off-limits (not to mention absurdly dangerous.)

And  I presume that Holder's interrogation of the CIA interrogators is continuing apace.

Comments

[Water trumpeting.]

Unless made safe, legal, and rare, waterboarding or something like it, is going to be a recourse of those used to bathing with elephants.
==================================

[Cecil Turner]

Heard a similar winge on the talk shows on Sunday. It was amazing to me the talking head (with zero military experience, natch) didn't understand how much harder it is to capture someone than to kill them.

That said, one of the perverse outcomes of treating enemy combatants like criminals is that it removes many of the incentives to capture them. I expect you'll see more of that at the front (refusing surrenders, etc.) if this thing drags on.

[Rob Crawford]

I expect you'll see more of that at the front (refusing surrenders, etc.) if this thing drags on.

It's not like the jihadis hadn't already committed false surrender. "Take no prisoners" is a valid, if bloody, response to unlawful combatants.

[Danube of Thought]

These guys have talked themselves into the conclusion that Gitmo is not an appropriate detention center. There is nothing on earth that can change their minds. It's crazy.

[Ignatz]

The problem of losing intelligence is a very real danger and the result of killing rather than capturing them may be more dead on our side as well, due to knowledge lost.
Political expediency kills an awful lot of people, but hey as long as Barry can brandish a scalp or two who cares?

[narciso]

Karen De Young hasn't been right on anything for the last 30 years, any foreign foe, Sandinista, Hezbollah et al, she always takes
their side. blowing up Ali Sabhan means you don't get the info on an Al Shahaab leader

[Ignatz]

Moreover, could someone please explain to me how Gitmo is a jihadist recruiting tool but blowing jihadis up along with women and children nearby, not to mention the occasional mistaken hit, isn't?

[Danube of Thought]

Minus seventeen today.

[Pops]

If we had captured and interogated the Yemen Al Queada leader last September (And captured aby information he was carrying), perhaps we would have caught the underwear bomber, and many future underwear bombers, before his/their bombs go off - that is the point.

Blowing them up has the same effect as telling them to remain silent.

No wonder a bomber walked right in and took out our CIA operatives in Afghanistan. We weren't getting any intel...

[Pops]

Hey, when your cheering a 20% recivitism rate on Islamic terrorists, you really have to believe you're doing a great job.

Imagine, only 20% of the terrorists that kill an American soldier, go on to kill another American soldier after we let them go. And Brennan gets a 100% on his effectiveness report!

And why hasn't this loon been fired yet?

[Neo]

... and then comes the official leak from the Administration ...

U.S. intelligence officials appear to have obtained access to what could turn out to be a significant trove of phone numbers, photographs and documents detailing the links between Al Qaeda's leaders in northwest Pakistan and the terror group's increasingly menacing affiliate in Yemen, two counter-terrorism sources tell Declassified.

[Neo]

So are Newsweek and WaPo playing "good cop - bad cop" ?

[narciso]

Could they give the street address of his apartment in downtown Peshawar, do they not realize they have burned the people who aided
in his capture. Where are they holding him, is the HIG in operation now

[Ignatz]

--Could they give the street address of his apartment in downtown Peshawar, do they not realize they have burned the people who aided
in his capture.--

Apparently the press learned of his capture by public postings an a jihadi website telling Paki AQ guys he was captured and to change their phone numbers etc.

[narciso]

This would suggest that Barud, is the source for the information, they say they were getting out of abdulmutallab, or are they going to say that the latter gave up his name
in those first 50 minutes

[Pops]

To be fair to Obama, he doesn't want all terrorists dead:

Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahis, who was supposed to be less then 3 months from certain death has now survived 6 months since his release.

[daddy]

And I suppose if you just kill all your enemies instead of capturing and imprisoning them like the Israeli's do, then you never have to worry about being blackmailed into hostage exchanges. Gosh, wonder why the Israeli's didn't think of that as a smart strategy the rest of the world would applaud as sensible and necessary?

[daddy]

Thanks pops for posting that.

I never want to forget the release of that mass murderer for "humane reasons" and the potential of better relations with radical Islam in the future, but it sure is tough trying to keep getting reliable info on the guy whereabouts.