Washington: President Barack Obama said the broad war powers Congress approved to fight al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks shouldn’t continue forever and that he’s reining in drone strikes and paving the way to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“In the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al-Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States,” the president said in an hour-long address yesterday at National Defense University in Washington.
“Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states,” Obama said. “This war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.”
The president’s speech was months in the works and came a day after he signed a classified document shared with key members of Congress containing details of the changes.
While calling the U.S. drone campaign justified and legal, Obama said he was tightening the rules governing who can be targeted in the strikes by unmanned aircraft.
The U.S. military, instead of the Central Intelligence Agency, will be the lead authority for drone strikes, administration officials said. Obama said he will work with Congress on how to add scrutiny to a largely secret program.
Guantanamo Transfers
The president said he’ll also ask Congress to lift restrictions on transferring Guantanamo detainees to other countries and lift a moratorium on transfers to Yemen.
The Yemeni government issued a statement saying it “welcomes” Obama’s decision and will work with detainees on “their gradual rehabilitation and integration back into society.”
Obama sought to address years of criticism about U.S. counterterrorism policy from Congress, human rights groups and the international community. His speech came as Congress is reviewing the authorization of military force that stemmed from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and amid concerns that other countries are pursuing drone technology.
His remarks were punctuated by an exchange with a heckler who, before she was ultimately removed, demanded the release of Guantanamo detainees and compensation for “innocent families.”
Obama said that while he disagreed with much of what the woman said, she was “worth paying attention to” if only because “these are tough issues and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.”
‘Different Way’
Harold Koh, a Yale Law professor and former State Department adviser who has defended the use of drone strikes, said it was “a very important speech in terms of saying I’m not doing this the Bush way, I’m doing this a different way.”
More than four years into his presidency, Obama has now “clearly opted for what I’d call exit strategy, over perpetual war, and that is a very big change from the last administration.”
Republican lawmakers reacted with resistance on several fronts, from winding down the authorization of military force, to sending detainees back to Yemen or releasing cleared detainees, to closing Guantanamo.
“We’re in a war that’s not winding down,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “The enemy is morphing. It is spreading.”
Human rights activists who are challenging the legality of drone strikes and calling for the closing of Guantanamo reacted with qualified praise. Obama should have acted sooner, they said, and too many details remain secret or have yet to be decided.
Repairing Legacy
“President Obama’s efforts to repair his legacy in the eyes of future historians will require that he continue to double down, if he is to fully restore this nation’s standing at home and abroad,” Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
On the eve of Obama’s remarks, his administration for the first time acknowledged that U.S. drone strikes overseas have killed four U.S. citizens, in Pakistan and Yemen, including al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen in September 2011.
Obama said he declassified the information “to facilitate transparency and debate on this issue.” While it would be unconstitutional to kill any U.S. citizen without due process, he said, the circumstances of a citizen waging war against America changes the calculation. |
