Washington (CNN) President Barack Obama and his 2008 campaign rival, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, are bitter rivals on almost every aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Yet they are allies on one particularly thorny subject -- the use of armed drones.

On this highly effective and sometimes imperfect weapon in the war against terrorist groups, the White House wants the Pentagon, not the Central Intelligence Agency, to take the lead in these lethal operations.

The administration's admission last week that two Western hostages, including American Warren Weinstein, were inadvertently killed in a CIA drone strike in January has prompted key members of Congress to urge a shift in control over the agency's controversial drone program to the Defense Department.

"We will renew this discussion with the administration, within Congress as to who actually should be running the drone operation," McCain said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

Asked whether the CIA should be conducting a drone program, McCain responded, "I do not think so. That's why they are -- that's why they are called the intelligence agency and why we call the armed forces the -- obviously, the people that are supposed to be carrying out military operations."

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