Would Ease Rules Put In Place By Obama Administration Restricting Use Of The Aircraft

The National Security Council under President Donald Trump is reviewing rules put in place by the Obama administration in 2013 that restricts the use of drone operations, including drone strikes, outside active war zones.

The Washington Post reports that a recent draft of the policy would allow the pentagon to make decisions about targets without Presidential approval, and might remove a standard set by Obama of "near certainty" that no civilian casualties would occur outside war zones.

The requirement that potential terror targets pose a "continuing and imminent threat" to U.S. personnel might also be relaxed.

The Trump administration remains committed to a standard above that mandated by the international law of armed conflict, according to a senior administration official. But the administration is expected to support changes that would give final authority back to the Pentagon and the CIA, where they had been before Obama directed that the White House have final approval on any such operation.

A senior Trump administration official who spoke to the Washington Post under the condition of anonymity said that any new policy will recognize that any civilian casualties overseas can be damaging to U.S. counterterrorism policy goals. "We want to have a wise, moral standard that allows us to maintain the consent of the governed in these countries," the official said.

FMI: www.whitehouse.gov