Tuesday, 31 January 2012President Barack Obama has made a rare admission about U.S. unmanned "drone" aircraft attacks in Pakistani territory -- confirming that such attacks take place, and suggesting reports of civilian casualties from the strikes are overstated.
In an online forum with web users, Obama acknowledged many U.S. drone strikes occur in Pakistan's tribal regions near the Afghan border, targeting Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Obama said attacking militants in another way would involve "probably a lot more intrusive military action than the ones we're already engaging in."
Pakistani officials have publicly condemned U.S. drone strikes targeting militants, but diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks in late 2010 showed Pakistan's civilian and military leaders have privately supported the practice.
In his first "virtual interview," in which he logged on to Google Plus for the Oval Office's first virtual "Hangout," Obama also said the U.S. economy appears to be picking up. Many of the questions were picked in voting on YouTube.
"We are starting to see some signs that the economy is picking up. We've created 3 million jobs over the past 22 months and we saw the largest boost in manufacturing jobs that we've seen since the '90s," Obama said.
The discussion was streamed on Google Plus, the White House website, and the White House's YouTube channel. |
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
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