Study: Drones Killed More Civilians Than Jets
U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan killed 10 times as many civilians as manned jet fighters, a study by an adviser to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said. - The reason is a lack of training, the researchers said. The higher death toll contradicts claims by President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials that unmanned aerial vehicles controlled by on-board computers or by remote pilots on the ground or in other vehicles were more precise than their manned counterparts. The study used classified military information to examine airstrikes in Afghanistan from mid-2010 to mid-2011 and the civilian casualties they caused. Combat drone strikes were "an order of magnitude more likely to result in civilian casualties per engagement" than strikes with human pilots on board, an unclassified summary of the study said. An order of magnitude refers to powers of 10, so an order of magnitude more likely means 10 times as likely.