White House exempts Syria air strikes from tight standards on civilian deaths

The White House has for the first time acknowledged that strict standards President Barack Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq. A White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria’s Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.

They were carrying bodies out the rubble. … I saw seven or eight ambulances coming out of there. We believe this was a big mistake.

Abu Abdo Salabman, a political member of one of the Free Syria Army factions

One former Obama administration official said the new White House statement raises questions about how the U.S. intends to proceed in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, and under what legal authorities. Questions about civilian deaths from U.S. counterterrorism operations have confronted the Obama administration from the outset, after the president sharply ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, resulting in sometimes heated internal policy debates.

For me and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live.

President Barack Obama in a 2013 speech on civilian casualties

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