Newsnight covers Bureau’s drone investigation
The Bureau’s investigation into civilian deaths caused by US drone strikes in Pakistan was widely picked up in the national and international media.
Coverage in the UK
The Bureau’s Chris Woods, who leads a team of researchers, appeared on the BBC’s Newsnight on Monday evening to offer his analysis on the US government’s paucity of response. The piece was uploaded onto YouTube by the Stop the War Coalition.
The newly launched Huffington Post UK published a blog by Chris Woods, where he questioned why such claims by the Obama administration were not being firmly challenged given the many credible reports of civilian deaths that contradict their assertions.
Researcher Alice Ross’s piece explaining the background to the investigation and its findings was published on the Public Service Europe website.
Drone Wars UK also picked up on the story, and an analysis by the Bureau’s Jamie Thunder was also featured on the website liberalconspiracy.org
And in Pakistan the piece received coverage by Dawn, the country’s oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper.
US reaction to the Bureau’s findings: A senior US official said: ‘There haven’t been any non-combatant casualties for about a year and assertions to the contrary are wrong. The most accurate information on counter-terror operations resides with the United States and this list is wildly inaccurate. Those operations are designed to protect America and our allies, including Pakistan, from terrorists who continue to seek to kill innocents around the world.’
Senior US official
Coverage in the US
Salon.com, the US online magazine that focuses on US politics and current affairs, also picked up on the story, using the Bureau’s findings to further question the Obama Administration’s claims that there have been ‘no civilian casualties’ in the last year. Chris Woods was interviewed on Salon Radio.
And the story was also picked up by the American Civil Liberties Union, who assert: ‘Zero civilian casualties — during a period when there were more than 100 CIA drone strikes — sounded almost too good to be true. As it turns out, it was.’
The Bureau’s assessment of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan is a major ongoing project. If you would like receive updates on this issue click here to sign up to our newsletter.
