Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, released the following statement:
“For years, I have pushed the Administration and Congress for an annual report on the number of combatants and noncombatants killed in counterterrorism strikes outside of active theaters of armed conflict. Today's decision to release seven years of this data in aggregate form is an important step forward.
"Despite our best efforts to ensure to a near-certainty that no non-combatants will be killed or injured, sometimes strikes do result in harm to the innocent. It is important that we continue to acknowledge those incidents, learn from them, hold ourselves accountable and be as transparent as possible. I also believe that the release of this data will help to undercut inflated estimates of civilian casualties. As the technology to strike in nonpermissive environments proliferates, we must set a standard that we can hold up to other nations.
“While the release today is an important first step, I will continue to push to make the annual reports legislatively required and to include more detailed criteria about how we define combatants and noncombatants.”
