Obama Administration’s Drone Death Figures Don’t Add Up (With Interactive Graph)

Source: ProPublica

Last month, a “senior administration official” said the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under President Obama is in the “single digits.” But last year “U.S. officials” said drones in Pakistan killed about 30 civilians in just a yearlong stretch under Obama.

Both claims can’t be true.

A centerpiece of President Obama’s national security strategy, drones strikes in Pakistan are credited by the administration with crippling Al Qaeda but criticized by human rights groups and others for being conducted in secret and killing civilians. The underlying facts are often in dispute and claims about how many people died and who they were vary widely.

So we decided to narrow it down to just one issue: have the administration’s own claims been consistent?

http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-drone-death-figures-dont-add-up

Short answer is "no." The article does a great job breaking down all the contradictory claims. It also provides an informative interactive graph of the claims and the numbers of strikes:

http://www.propublica.org/special/how-obama-drone-death-claims-stack-up