SH You have to use the most appropriate technology at your disposal, technology that has the narrowest possible use. For example, a sniper firing a rifle at a target is preferable to a jet fighter dropping a 2,000-pound bomb on the building. In this sense, Predator drones may be an improvement, because they’re more precise than a jet dropping bombs from 20,000 feet. But there are still a lot of tactical issues involved. You’re engaged in a counterinsurgency campaign. Your goal is to win over hearts and minds. Do you accomplish this if you’re raining down bombs on wedding parties and funerals?

**GQ **Why hasn’t this question been more actively debated? Civilian deaths from drone attacks have been in Pakistani papers almost daily for over a year now, but it seems that no one in Congress is questioning whether this policy makes sense.

SH I think that’s largely because of the failure of Congressional oversight. We should have hearings about this. There should have been a full-throated public discussion. I think this is in part because of a growing acquiescence in Congress to a culture of secrecy, and in part because of incompetence. Yes, of course, you don’t get into the details of the capabilities of weapons systems in public hearings. But that doesn’t stop you from having frank and candid discussions about the underlying legal and ethical issues.

GQ Why isn’t Congress stepping up more? It seems that they’re still reluctant to challenge the ecutive branch.

SH It’s clear that we’ve seen a lot of further construction on the national security state since 9/11. Since World War II, there’s been a constant struggle between the ecutive and Congress about oversight of national security mechanisms. Since 9/11, it’s clear the upper hand is firmly with the ecutive, and the oversight authority of Congress has faded.

GQ What did Congressional oversight of weapons technology look like before 9/11?

SH If we go back the 1960s and 1970s, whenever new technological developments in warfare came, Congress insisted quite rigorously on establishing protocols and legal principles about how to use the weapons system. This included, one, that the military would develop guidelines to make sure that everything would be checked against existing law, domestic and international. Two, Congress made sure that civilian control was clearly implemented. This was a foundational principle. The military would control the weapons system, but it would be acting under the direction of the civilian leadership.

**GQ **What’s changed?

SH The most aggressive use of weaponry [in the Af/Pak theater] is now in the hands of the intelligence community, not the military. This is extremely disturbing. The intelligence community does not have a well-articulated doctrine that subjects their weapons programs to legal precedent, by which I mean both U.S. domestic law and international law of war principles. And it does not have this well-articulated notion of civilian leadership and oversight like the military. The intelligence community operates in an environment of secrecy. They don’t want people to know what they’re up to.

**GQ **Why isn’t Congress subjecting the C.I.A. to the same review?

**SH **There’s been a very serious failure in Congressional oversight over the intelligence community. When the Republicans ran Congress, intelligence oversight was a complete joke, and was viewed that way by the intelligence community. Since then, we’ve had something, but it’s really not much. I really view Dianne Feinstein [chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] as totally docile in this area. This isn’t surprising to me, given the fact that her husband is a defense contractor. One can fundamentally question the nature of the relationship between defense contractors and the defense community and intelligence contractors and the intelligence community. If you watch the way they interact, you would question who is the client and who is the service provider. Look at the apportionment of our budget between human beings and "toys." There’s an absolute obsession that people in the Pentagon have with the newest, the latest, and the fanciest toys. I think this is because the manufacturers of the toys control the senior echelons of the military and intelligence communities. They control it by offering employment to people at key points. So that someone knows they can be Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Development of Toys, and they’re not going to make much money, but they know that having that position will allow them to go off and be Vice President for Development of Toy Manufacturing in the private sector, where they’ll make loads of money. A number of people on the inside have told me this.