to talk about whether or not these military machines are really necessary lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer joins me now he's the director of external communications for the center of vance vance defense studies hi there tony thank you so much for joining the program. thank you ari let's start off by asking about why the cia needs these drones in the first place. well they don't i think this is one of those areas where i would consider mission creep one of the things that happened and let's be very clear drones go back to the one nine hundred fifty s. us or force used them for any number of purpose a sense that they've become much more sophisticated over the past ten years one of the things c.i. was doing back in the late ninety's early two thousand was what it was using drones for reconnaissance a very legitimate mission however it's redundant and this is where we need to be careful about who's doing walk regarding military operations overseas special operations command and the military also have a fleet of drones so the question becomes why do you need to fleets and is the cia's essential