US News

White House set to move drone program away from CIA: report

The CIA may be getting out of the drone business, according to a new report.

Three senior US officials say the White House is set to sign off on a plan to shift the drone program from the CIA to the Defense Department, the Daily Beast reports.

The site says the move could strengthen the accountability and transparency of the program because of potentially tougher criteria for fatal drone strikes.

The US currently has separate drone programs in the CIA and the DOD and this move would combine the two with oversight falling to the Defense Department.

This is a major shift because the military would now have operational control of the program instead of the intelligence agency, the site reports.

“This is a big deal,” says one senior administration official who has been briefed on the plan. “It would be a pretty strong statement.”

The US drone program was pulled into the spotlight recently with Sen. Rand Paul winning a filibuster war with the White House

Paul obtained a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder stating that President Obama doesn’t have the authority to use drones to kill American terror suspects on US soil.

Paul’s nearly 13-hour filibuster ended with a demand for the statement.

The drone program was questioned when it was used to killed US citizen and terror leader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in September 2011 and al Qaeda second-in-command Abu Yahya al-Libi in Pakistan in June 2012.