US spy retired General "Drones cause more damage than good"

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Saturday 18 Jul 2015 - 13:40 Makkah mean time-2-10-1436 (File image) Washington, (IINA) - US President Barack Obama's former top military intelligence official has launched a scathing attack on the White House's counter-terrorism strategy, including the administration's handling of the ISIL threat in Iraq and Syria and the US military's drone war, according to Al Jazeera report. In a forthcoming interview with Al Jazeera English's Head to Head, retired US Lt. General Michael Flynn, who quit as head of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in August 2014, said "there should be a different approach, absolutely" on drones. "When you drop a bomb from a drone you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good," Flynn said. Flynn was a senior intelligence officer with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which is responsible for the US military's secretive and controversial drone program in countries such as Yemen and Somalia. Asked by Al Jazeera English's Mehdi Hasan if drone strikes tend to create more terrorists than they kill, Flynn, who has been described by Wired magazine as "the real father of the modern JSOC", replied: "I don't disagree with that", adding: "I think as an overarching strategy, it is a failed strategy." "What we have is this continued investment in conflict," the retired general said. "The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict. Some of that has to be done but I am looking for the other solutions." Commenting on the rise of ISIL in Iraq, Flynn acknowledged the role played by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. "We definitely put fuel on a fire," he told Hasan. "Absolutely… there is no doubt; history will not be kind to the decisions that were made certainly in 2003." "Going into Iraq, definitely it was a strategic mistake," said Flynn. On the other side, the former general admitted that the US prison system in Iraq in the post-war period "absolutely" helped radicalize Iraqis who later joined Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its successor organization, ISIL. Flynn also called for greater accountability for US soldiers involved in abuses against Iraqi detainees: "You know I hope that as more and more information comes out that people are held accountable… History is not going to look kind on those actions… and we will be held, we should be held, accountable for many, many years to come." SM/IINA