# Obama's drone escalation

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Obama's drone escalation," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/obama-drone-escalation/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The pair of figures John Kiriakou uses to measure what changed between the Bush and Obama administrations — twenty-four people killed by drones in George W. Bush's last month in office against four hundred and forty in Barack Obama's — offered as the answer to anyone who treats the drone programme as an inherited policy rather than an expanded one.*

- **Bush's last month in office:** 24 people killed by drone
- **Obama's last month in office:** 440 people killed by drone
- **Kiriakou's question:** *"Is that really the country we want to be?"*
- **Related appointment:** [John Brennan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-brennan) as CIA director

**Obama's drone escalation** is the comparison [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) uses when the drone programme is discussed as something [Barack Obama](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/barack-obama) inherited rather than something he enlarged. Rather than argue the point he states two months: *"In George W. Bush's last month as president, he killed 24 people with drones. In Barack Obama's last month as president, he killed 440 people with drones."* The question he attaches is *"Like, is that really the country we want to be?"*, and his interviewer's gloss — trial by drone — goes unchallenged.[1]

He presents the figures as the second half of a pair. The first is the appointment: the president he had voted for, contributed to and taken his children to see inaugurated *"makes [John Brennan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-brennan) CIA director. John Brennan, who was the executive director of the CIA during the torture program, was one of the founders, the fathers of the torture program."*[2][1]

The escalation belongs, in his account, to the same disposition that produced his own prosecution — a president described to his lawyers by a National Security Council attorney as having *"a Nixonian obsession with national security leaks."*[3]

## See also

- [Barack Obama](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/barack-obama)
- [John Brennan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-brennan)
- [Daniel Hale](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/daniel-hale)
- [Espionage Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/espionage-act)

## Sources

1. Ex-CIA Officer Exposes the Torture Program (2023-09-22), at 1:02:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72EuwXMxSAQ&t=3728s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-09-22-ex-cia-officer-exposes-the-torture-program/
2. Ex-CIA Officer Exposes the Torture Program (2023-09-22), at 1:01:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72EuwXMxSAQ&t=3698s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-09-22-ex-cia-officer-exposes-the-torture-program/
3. Ex-CIA Officer Exposes the Torture Program (2023-09-22), at 1:23:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72EuwXMxSAQ&t=5009s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-09-22-ex-cia-officer-exposes-the-torture-program/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/obama-drone-escalation/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt