Questions are whether the drone was a strategic or tactical asset, whose tasking was it operating under (there probably is enormous competition among US agencies for these assets so target priorities and operating parameters have to be established by a committee)
Who and where was monitoring its feed? My understanding is that these are CIA assets unless in direct tactical battle support- and maybe even then. It is plausible that Panetta was not involved. After all, Gates possibly was in on the cabal of agency planners that blindsided the WH back when osama was taken out, so keeping the DoD out of this operation, if directed by the WHY, would have been tit for tat.
We have no ongoing hostilities involving DoD battle support in Libya that I am aware of. DoD people were pulled out.
Presumably it was intel collecting - against who and for what?
The inexplicable lying and cover up suggests this operation was all directed from the WH itself. A strategic covert military operation being run by arrogant ardent islamists, such as John Brennan (just sayin’)
I know nothing, only speculating. Nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express recently.
(October 18, 2012)
The CIA is urging the White House to approve a significant expansion of the agency’s fleet of armed drones, a move that would extend the spy service’s decade-long transformation into a paramilitary force, U.S. officials said.
The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus would bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots, officials said.
(snip)
The CIA’s proposal would have to be evaluated by a group led by President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, officials said.
(snip)
The administration has touted the collaboration between the CIA and the military in counterterrorism operations, contributing to a blurring of their traditional roles. In Yemen, the CIA routinely “borrows” the aircraft of the military’s Joint Special Operations Command to carry out strikes. The JSOC is increasingly engaged in activities that resemble espionage.
(snip)