US senator says strike in Pakistan that killed western hostages ‘was probably preventable, in that there was an obvious breakdown in intelligence’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Drone strikes against suspected enemy combatants on foreign soil should be run by the US military and not the CIA, Senate armed services committee chairman John McCain said on Sunday.

McCain made his remarks on CNN, days after it was disclosed that a drone strike in Pakistan in January mistakenly killed two western hostages: an American and an Italian.

“I think it was probably preventable, in that there was an obvious breakdown in intelligence. They didn’t know that they were there,” McCain said of the January drone strike.

The Republican senator and failed 2008 presidential candidate predicted the incident would renew a debate within the Obama administration about how the drone programme is run.

However, there still appeared to be strong support in Congress for employing the unmanned drones against enemy targets, an effort which has expanded during the Obama administration. Critics have long complained about civilians being killed in the airstrikes.

It is an “integral part of the conflict and a very essential one”, McCain said.

McCain acknowledged “some bias” on which federal agency should operate the drone programme, given that shifting it to the Pentagon from the CIA would put it under his purview as chairman of the Senate committee overseeing the military.

Nevertheless, he said the Pentagon had the expertise and “I think it should be conducted and oversight and administered by the Department of Defense.”

The US was targeting an al-Qaida compound in Pakistan when a drone strike killed American hostage Warren Weinstein, who had been held since 2011, and Italian hostage Giovanni Lo Porto, as well as an al-Qaida leader who also was an American.

Obama this week publicly apologised for the hostage deaths and took “full responsibility” for all counter-terrorism operations.

Several investigations, including by the CIA and Congress, are anticipated.