i would like to turn to john bellinger. you have been in the arena on so many of these issues, and if you could be -- begin by framing some of them for us, the legal policy aspects. >> thanks, mike, and thank you to the bipartisan policy center for putting this together. when i testified before the house judiciary committee a couple weeks ago, i started and ended my testimony with a plea for more bipartisanship. as we all know, one of the saddest byproducts of 9/11 has been the national security issues have become so divisive when we really ought to be pulling together. democratss do this to and democrats do it to republicans, and drones are yet another one of those. at the creation of the legal basis for the use of drones. i was in the white house in the summer of 2001 when we developed the armed predator and were thinking about using it against al qaeda leaders. in fact, osama bin laden, if we could find him. so i was responsible for developing legal framework. i do think as a general matter, it is permissible under both

the spirit ofn the center with agreeing with a lot of what john bellinger has said. targeted killings program rate is profoundly important legal and moral policy question. right now the public debate, with respect to those questions is crippled, because we don't actually have a lot of the information we need in order to determine the full extent of where the program is being carried out, how , against whom, with what investigation, and what measures to prevent harm to civilians. let me also start with another point of agreement. often a straw man is created. the idea that people are against drones. some people may be. as a legal matter, i don't think drones are unlawful, but as a policy matter, they raise profoundly important question, because they are easier to use without risk to u.s. forces and may be able to be used in places where we are not otherwise at war, as has been explained to the american public where we are at war. it becomes a legal issue when you tell about who is using drones. it has been widely reported that the cia and is using drones. the cia dron

you know as i speak you know the drone wars i can't help but think of john bellinger the chief architect of the drone policy who was speaking to a think tank recently and he said that obama's ramped up the drone killings simply to avoid the bad press of getting out of capturing suspects alive and trying to get now when you hear things like this what is your response to people who say his hands are tied he wants to do well that's right it was pointed out some time ago but will street journal military correspondent what he pointed out is that bush's technique was to. capture people and torture them. obama's improved you just kill them and anybody else is around it's not that his hands are he's a i mean that's a much more. it's bad enough to capture them and torture them but just to murder on executive whim and as i say it's not just murder of the suspect there are weapons there are there are windows. that's. it's not that anyone's hansard that's what he wants to do right rather be detained indefinitely and then be blown up as well as my family and friends around me. and her as is everyone

kind of cool you know that and i speak you know the drone wars i can't help but think of john bellinger the chief architect of the drone policy who was speaking to a think tank recently and he said that obama's ramped up the drone killings simply to avoid the bad press of getting out of capturing suspects alive and trying to get now when you hear things like this what is your response to people who say his hands are tied he wants to do well that's right it was pointed out some time ago but will street journal military correspondent what he pointed out is that bush's technique was to. capture people and torture them. obama's improved you just kill them and anybody else who's around it's not that his hands are he's a i mean that's a much more. it's bad enough to capture them and torture them but just. murder on executive whim and as i say it's not just murder in the source but there are weapons there are there are windows. so it's not that anyone's hansard that's what he wants to do and i'd rather be detained indefinitely and then be blown up as well as my family and friends around me. an

guess what it is according to guardian the lawyer who drafted the policy on drone assassinations john bellinger claims that the obama administration is ramping up the use of killer robots for this very reason he says the administration's unwilling to deal with the consequences of capturing these terror suspects alive and having them end up in a limbo of get known at a press conference the bipartisan policy center bellenger said quote this government has decided that instead of detaining members of al qaeda. they're going to kill them so basically obama's drone architect admits that five thousand human beings have died just so bomb i can avoid bad press because heaven forbid we'll deal we deal with the antiquated concept of the rule of law you know capturing suspects alive and actually charging them with a crime before blowing them and everyone around them up wow how far you've strayed from the very constitutional laws that you once used to teach the set. let's look at one of the other she let me feel like. i often talk about the horrors of war on the show the sad reality of innocent civilians w

people abroad instead of detaining to make something of way bad press and merely weeks after that john bellinger the drone architect and the obama administration came out at a think tank when you're going to speech and said how obama is trying to avoid the bad press and that's why is as good of this drone warfare i mean. you look at him commentary is that honorable of the also you had harold koh who is the state department's legal adviser for four years who was on the leading critics of president bush became a part of the administration and signed off on these procedures he's out of the administration now gave a talk last week in oxford where he said we got to close guantanamo so it's. like you know where were these people when they were in the administration and we've got to stand up and do the right thing the president's got to close this and put an end to this chapter and before we get into how that can actually happen then take a closer look at the force feeding that's going on can you tell us any more details about about what's happening now that we've obtained these documents and i'll just

this hunger strike it's really bad press but more importantly i think the broader picture is john bellinger one of the drone architects came out to a think tank lately and said that obama has avoided getting the entirely because of its you know such bad press for the bush administration that he's just opted to kill suspected militants and suspected terrorists abroad so he's actually just taking it one step further bush like to go and capture people and torture them and hold them indefinitely obama has just opted to killing people and blowing up their friends and family without charges or trial so you know to me it's even just going farther than anything we've ever seen if i could add on to that you know there's been a lot of talk out of the white house the congress has handcuffed ability to close guantanamo there's a lot of members of congress who are speaking out and saying well that's not exactly the case carl levin has reached out to the white house saying there's a national security waiver in the in last year's national defense authorization act that allows you to close it senator diann

guess what it is according to guardian the lawyer who drafted the policy on drone assassinations john bellinger claims that the obama administration is ramping up the use of killer robots for this very reason he says the administration's unwilling to deal with the consequence.

and interrogation where you just brought up a really good point which is drone killing and also john bellinger obama's drone architect just came out in a speech to a foreign policy think tank and he said you know obama has resorted to escalating this drone warfare to just opt in to kill people allege militant suspected terrorists instead of dealing with the bad press of detaining him it get no i mean how sad of a commentary is that that we've simply resorted to killing people without charges or trial and then to deal with bad press i think it's probably more complicated than just that i think it's not totally black and white but i do think that when they make these calculations about capturing versus killing and they look at risks in all the other things about doing an actual operation certainly drone killings do appear a lot cleaner easier to do we see members of congress from both parties cheer the drone strikes and so it's both politically easier and militarily less risky to carry out these killing operations as opposed to capture operations and i think the rule of law definitely is complex

let me start out in the spirit of the center with agreeing with a lot of what john bellinger has said. the targeted killing program has profoundly important legal and policy questions, and the debate is crippled because we do not actually have a lot of the information that we need in order to determine the full extent of where the program is being carried out, how, against two, with what investigation, and what measures to prevent harm to civilians. let me also start out with another point of agreement. often a straw man is created, the idea that -- as a legal matter, i don't think drones are per se unlawful, but as a policy matter, they have raised a family important questions because they are easier to use without risk to u.s. forces, and they may be able to use -- to be used in places where we are not otherwise at war, as has been explained to the american public where we are at war. it also becomes a legal issue when you talk about who is using the drones. it has been widely reported that the cia is using drones. the idea that the cia program is secret is one of the worst kept sec

to talk about subtle aspects of portraiture painting s.th a group or rembrandt next to me is john bellinger, a partner at a law firm and former to the national security council. he speaks and writes regularly on public international law issues. he testified before the house committee on drones in the war on terror. happy to have you here. to his left is the director of the aclu's national security project, dedicated to ensuring the national you're sicecurity practice are consistent with human rights peerage is litigating cases and work include the focus on the intersection of national security and terrorism. she is a lecturer in law at columbia law school. is the associate dean of the university of virginia's graduate school of arts and sciences, former secretary of state u.s. department date. the executive director of the 9/11 commission. he served on national commission and task forces and is written books to read he is a member of the president's intelligence advisory board where the word drone has been mentioned once or twice. welcome. , and national security correspondent for the new y

john bellinger mentions the obama administration was making efforts to clarify this issue.i have read those speeches, and it seems to me what i have read is more of a rationalization for what we have done rather criticalblishing a framework for where we need to go. a couple of questions have come out of that. what is it with regard to roles and responsibilities? i think no one has any trouble with the imam, but when we go to his 16-year-old son two weeks later, we learned that that operation was not conducted by cia, which was supposedly in charge of this, but by the department of defense. on the issues of roles and responsibilities and accountability that comes out of that, what is the legal foundation for either of those agencies or departments to be involved, and how do we get that clarified so that we can have clearer policy and then embed that in law? and the final point that hina has made are the international implications from a legal standpoint. i would expect any president to use any capability available to them at the time of an attack, but we do come to our sense