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White House offers rare defense of drone attacks

President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser offered a rare public defense Sunday of the use of armed drones to target terrorism suspects - a technique widely discussed by national security experts outside government and by human rights activists, but almost always treated as secret by U.S. officials.

"Drones, the remotely piloted vehicles, [are] a tremendously capable tool to use against the terrorist abroad. It has capability to monitor their activities. It provides a good insight to our intelligence analysts and operators in terms of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It has the capability of carrying out strikes as well," Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said on "Fox News Sunday."

In response to a question about a recent decision by Obama to give the Central Intelligence Agency and the military broader authority to carry out drone strikes in Yemen, Brennan emphasized that such strikes are always done with approval of the countries where they take place, though he stopped short of saying that local authorities had advance notice of each specific strike.

"When we're doing this, we are doing it in full consent and cooperation with our partners internationally. This is something that the president has told us we need to work closely with these partners. And so, in Yemen in particular, these groups, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in particular, are determined to kill Americans," Brennan said in the pre-taped segment.

It was not immediately clear whether Brennan's comments were simply an unplanned outbreak of public candor on the subject or whether high-level administration deliberations about whether to be more open in discussions of anti-terrorism operations led to his remarks. Justice Department lawyers told a federal court last week that discussions were underway "at the highest level of the executive branch" that could lead to greater public disclosures about the administration's policy on using lethal force against U.S. citizens, for instance.

Asked about Brennan's statements, a White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said the counterterrorism adviser "was talking about drones as a tool in the abstract."

"I think many people have commented on the fact that they allow a level of precision that you cant get with an F16, for example," Vietor added.

While American officials have generally been tight-lipped about anti-terrorism operations carried out by armed drones, there have been a few occasions where they have discussed the topic in public.

In a video chat in January , Obama acknowledged drone strikes "going after Al Qaeda suspects" have taken place in Pakistan, though that fact was treated as classified up until that point and since.

"We have to be judicious in how we use drones," the president said. "For the most part, they've been very precise precision strikes against Al-Qaeda and their affiliates, and we're very careful in terms of how it's been applied."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who had been CIA director, has also talked a bit about the operations.

UPDATE: This post has been updated with more of Brennan's comments.