Between 64 and 116 civilians in countries other than Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria have been killed by U.S. airstrikes during President Obama’s tenure, the administration said Friday in a pre-holiday-weekend disclosure likely timed to minimize public attention. The deaths took places in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and mostly involved drone attacks.
The New York Times notes that independent estimates of the number of civilians killed under the conditions described by the administration are higher, ranging from 200 to 1,000.
An Amnesty International statement included measured praise for the announcement but said more information is necessary to evaluate the administration’s claims:
Amnesty International has consistently called on the United States government not only to be more transparent about its data and policy standards, but about it counts as a civilian. Without information on the administration’s definitions and legal standards for these strikes, any meaningful assessment of the numbers will be incomplete. This is not the end of the public conversation on U.S. drone strikes, but just the beginning.
While the White House also announced that a new executive order directs intelligence officials to release an annual summary of civilian fatality information, the information given out Friday is the first released in the eight years of Obama’s administration and is not broken down by year or by incident. Future presidents, meanwhile, will be free to reverse the executive order.
