Senator Rand Paul’s drone filibuster delays CIA nomination

Senator Rand Paul

As the war of words over drones and their deployment continues Senator Rand Paul spoke without a pause for nearly 13 hours, in a tactic known as a filibuster, before yielding the floor before 01:00 (06:00 GMT).

The move has delayed a Senate vote on John Brennan until Thursday.

Mr Brennan currently serves as a top counter-terrorism adviser at the White House, and was nominated in January.

As part of the Obama administration’s national security team, he helped oversee the drone program.

Sen Paul – a critic of the use of drones – demanded a pledge from either President Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder that drones would not be used in the US to kill terror suspects who are US citizens.

Mr Brennan’s nomination was approved by a Senate intelligence panel after the White House sent the committee a raft of legal memos on the targeting killing of US citizens in drone strikes.

‘No’

Sen Paul, the son of former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ron Paul, began the filibuster shortly before noon (17:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

The Kentucky senator said he was “alarmed” by how difficult it had been to get President Barack Obama’s administration to clearly define what qualifies as a legitimate target of a drone strike.

“No president has the right to say he is judge, jury and executioner,” Sen Paul said, adding he would end the filibuster if the White House clarified no such attack would happen on US soil.

In a letter to Sen Paul on 4 March, Attorney General Eric Holder said the US government “had not carried out drone strikes in the United States and had no intention of doing so”.

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