Obama: Use of drones heavily monitored WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. President Obama defended the controversial use of drones, saying the program is tightly controlled for specific targets to avoid more invasive action. Obama said use of unmanned aircraft in theaters of war helps keep civilian deaths down when striking at suspected terrorist sites in Pakistan and elsewhere, The New York Times reported Monday. "We are very careful in terms of how it's been applied," Obama said during a Web-based interview session sponsored by Google Plus, the social media site of Google. It is important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash. Obama confirmed the CIA drones were used by the State Department for surveillance of diplomatic facilities in Iraq, as reported by the Times. He said the drones were a key element in U.S. offensive against al-Qaida. The CIA's drone program, unlike the military's use of armed unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan and previously in Iraq, is a covert operation and generally has not been addressed directly by the administration.