text: Congress has moved to block President Obama’s plan to shift control of the U.S. drone campaign from the CIA to the Defense Department, inserting a secret provision in the massive government spending bill introduced this week that would preserve the spy agency’s role in lethal counterterrorism operations, U.S. officials said. 
   
   The measure, included in a classified annex to the $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, would restrict the use of any funding to transfer unmanned aircraft or the authority to carry out drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon, officials said. 
   
   The provision represents an unusually direct intervention by lawmakers into the way covert operations are run, impeding an administration plan aimed at returning the CIA’s focus to traditional intelligence gathering and possibly bringing more transparency to drone strikes. 
   
   The move also reflects some lawmakers’ lingering doubts about the U.S. military’s ability to conduct strikes against al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates without hitting the wrong targets and killing civilians. 
   
   Those apprehensions were amplified after a U.S. military strike in Yemen last month killed a dozen people, including as many as six civilians, in an 11-vehicle convoy that tribal leaders said was part of a wedding procession. U.S. officials said that the strike was aimed at a senior al-Qaeda operative but that reviews of the operation have raised concern that it failed to comply with White House guidelines requiring “near certainty” that no civilians would be harmed. 
   
   Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) read from a Washington Post story on the Senate floor Thursday, slamming the Senate and House Appropriations committee for amending a spending bill so that it would affect policy with regard to drones. (The Associated Press) 
   
   On Wednesday, there were reports that another U.S. strike had killed a farmer in Yemen. 
   
   The extent of the restrictions contained in the drone provision remained unclear. The measure was included by members of the House and Senate appropriations committees, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the legislation. Other senior lawmakers and congressional officials declined to comment on the contents of the classified annex, which details funding for U.S. spy agencies. 
   
   Still, senior lawmakers have been vocal in expressing concern about the prospect of the CIA ceding responsibility for drone strikes to the military. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said last year that she had seen the CIA “exercise patience and discretion specifically to prevent collateral damage” and that she “would really have to be convinced that the military would carry it out that well.” 
   
   Feinstein declined to comment on the budget measure this week. But a senior aide said that the senator “stands by her earlier statements” and that the Intelligence Committee has “recently reviewed this issue, and Senator Feinstein believes her views are widely shared on the committee.” 
   
   Asked about the scope of that review, the aide said the panel “took stock of” the program and “came to a conclusion” but would not elaborate. 
   
   Among Feinstein’s colleagues on the Intelligence Committee is Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who is chairman of the appropriations panel responsible for the budget bill. A spokesman for that committee declined to comment. 
   
   There is no mention of the drone provision in the hundreds of pages of the budget blueprint released to the public. A section outlining $572 billion in Pentagon spending notes that “adjustments to classified programs are addressed in the accompanying classified annex.” 
   
   The Houes voted to adopt the $1.1-trillion measure that funds the government through the fiscal year. (The Associated Press) 
   
   A person familiar with the omnibus bill confirmed that the annex includes language on the drone program but would say only that the provision is more complicated than merely withholding money to prevent drone operations from being transferred to the Pentagon. 
   
   Former U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence appropriations process said that aside from placing restrictions on funding, Congress could create other obstacles — for example, requiring the Pentagon to certify that it has matched the CIA’s capabilities and targeting methodology before it is allowed to proceed. 
   
   Spokespeople for the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment. 
   
   The spending bill sets budgets for agencies across the federal government for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The measure cleared the House late Wednesday. It is expected to be approved by the Senate this week and delivered to President Obama for his signature as soon as Saturday. 
   
   The move by Congress carries implications for the course of the U.S. efforts against al-Qaeda at a time when its affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria have become more worrisome to American counterterrorism officials than the terrorist organization’s traditional core. 
   
   Also at issue is the fundamental mission of the CIA, which during the past decade has morphed into a paramilitary force. Senior officials, including CIA Director John O. Brennan, have warned that the agency’s emphasis on lethal operations deviates from its traditional mission and could impair its ability to focus on gathering intelligence. 
   
   The administration first signaled its intent to shift control of drone operations to the Pentagon last year, when Obama announced new guidelines for counterterrorism missions — including a pledge of greater transparency — during a speech at the National Defense University. At the time, administration officials briefing reporters said there would be “a preference for the Department of Defense to engage in the use of force outside war zones.” 
   
   The remark was a reference to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia — countries beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States has carried out drone strikes against al-Qaeda targets. 
   
   Obama’s policy shift was expected to mainly affect Yemen, where the CIA and the elite U.S. Joint Special Operations Command conduct overlapping drone campaigns. 
   
   The overall pace of strikes has diminished significantly in Pakistan and Yemen, and Brennan has held secret meetings with Pentagon officials in recent months to work out logistical challenges and other impediments to shifting control of drone operations. 
   
   But the CIA still carries out the majority of strikes, and the collateral damage that has accompanied some JSOC strikes has generated growing opposition to removing the agency from such operations anytime soon. 
   
   The Pentagon has refused to release any details on the Dec. 12 strike carried out by JSOC in Radaa, a district that has become a stronghold for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. Yemen initially insisted that only militants had been killed, but it later acknowledged civilian casualties. 
   
   The government then delivered rifles and other compensation to victims’ families — payments that a Yemeni official described as a “deposit” to encourage clan leaders to take part in tribal mediation and accept further compensation rather than seek retaliation against the Sanaa government. 
   
   “There was a [legitimate] target, and then something happened, a misfire,” the Yemeni official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy surrounding U.S. strikes. “I’ve never been aware of any incident before where a strike targeted such a large convoy of vehicles.” 
   
   AQAP is responsible for near-miss attacks on the United States, including the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009. The terrorist group has been driven out of territory it had gained over the past two years but is still considered by U.S. officials to pose a serious threat to the United States. 
   
   In a meeting with U.S., European and Middle Eastern diplomats last week, Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi described the security situation as unstable and warned specifically of indications that potential al-Qaeda recruits from European and other Western nations were seeking to enter the country, according to U.S. and Yemeni officials. 
   
   Lori Montgomery and Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report. ||||| Hooria Mashhour is Yemen’s minister for human rights. 
   
   December 12 was supposed to be a day of celebration for the al-Ameri family. A young bride traveled to her wedding with her relatives in Bayda province, Yemen. But in a few dark seconds their celebrations were eviscerated. A U.S. drone fired at the wedding procession, destroying five vehicles and most of their occupants. Not even the bride’s car, ornately decorated in flowers for the occasion, was spared from the carnage. Senior Yemeni officials later admitted that the strike was a “mistake”. 
   
   Some mistake: Though the bride survived, the strike is said to have killed at least 14 civilians and injured 22 others, over a third of them seriously. This marks the largest death toll by a drone strike in Yemen since the drone war’s inception. It is also the largest death toll by U.S. strike since December 2009, when a U.S. cruise missile killed 41 civilians in al-Majala, including 14 women and 21 children. 
   
   In the wake of the killing, a wave of outrage has swept the country. The Yemeni government rushed to meet community elders, seeking to negotiate a quiet settlement for the killing of the bride’s loved ones. But the bereaved villagers rejected the overtures and instead demanded that Yemen’s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, stop U.S. drones before they would sit at any negotiating table. 
   
   On its side, rather than forthrightly address its role in these grim events, the U.S. government has issued no admission of responsibility, nor any apology. It has left the Yemeni government to clean up another bloody mess. 
   
   1 of 86 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Tom Toles goes global View Photos A collection of cartoons about international news. Caption A collection of Tom Toles cartoons about international news. Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
   
   Only recently,we had cause to hope for better. In November, Yemeni civil engineer Faisal bin Ali Jaber traveled over 7,000 miles to the U.S. in search of answers. He met congressmen, senators, and even some White House officials to tell them how U.S. missiles incinerated his nephew and brother-in-law at his son’s wedding last year. In that strike,the U.S. killed two potential allies – one an imam who regularly preached against al-Qaeda; the other one of the town’s few policemen. Jaber received heartfelt condolences from many lawmakers. Yet no official was prepared to explain why his relatives were killed, or why the U.S. administration would not acknowledge its mistake. 
   
   This is not the first time a U.S. drone has killed civilians in Bayda. On Sept. 2, 2012, a U.S. plane hit a village shuttle near Radda. The vehicle was full of villagers carrying their day’s shopping. As usual, the initial press coverage labelled the dead as “al-Qaeda militants,” but when the relatives threatened to deliver the bodies to the president’s gates, the Yemeni government was forced to concede that all 12 of those people killed were civilians. Among the victims, a pregnant woman and three children were laid to rest. 
   
   The use of drones in Yemen might appear a simple, quick-fix option for President Obama. But as Nabeel Khoury, former U.S. deputy chief of mission to Yemen, recently wrote, “Drone strikes take out a few bad guys to be sure, but they also kill a large number of innocent civilians. Given Yemen’s tribal structure, the U.S. generates roughly forty to sixty new enemies for every AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] operative killed by drones.” 
   
   Let me be clear: I, like the vast majority of my countrymen, reject terrorism. All of us were repulsed by recent footage of a gruesome attack on a Yemeni defense ministry hospital. We agree that our fight against extremist groups cannot be won without a variety of efforts, including robust law enforcement. But more often than not, U.S. drone strikes leave families bereaved and villages terrified. Drones tear at the fabric of Yemeni society. Wronged and angry men are just the sort extreme groups like AQAP find easiest to recruit. 
   
   Our president may reassure the United States of his support for drone strikes but the reality is that no leader can legitimately approve the extrajudicial killing of his own citizens. Moreover, he does so in the face of Yemeni consensus. This August, Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference — which President Obama has praised — decided by a 90 percent majority that the use of drones in Yemen should be criminalised. 
   
   Yemeni legislators are aware that the drone war is deeply unpopular. Since the Dec,. 12 strike, our parliament has unanimously voted to ban drone flights in Yemeni airspace, declaring them a “grave breach” of the country’s sovereignty. For a country so often divided, this unanimity from Yemen’s most representative bodies testifies to the strength of opinion against drones. But their calls have thus far met only with more bombings from the skies. How can the people of Yemen build trust in their fledgling democracy when our collective will is ignored by democracy’s greatest exponent? ||||| ADEN (Reuters) - A Yemeni farmer was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Wednesday in what witnesses said was an attack apparently intended for suspected Islamist militants in southeastern Yemen. 
   
   Witnesses said the farmer was killed by shrapnel from two rockets fired by the drone early in the morning as he walked home in the village of al-Houta, near the city of Shibam. 
   
   A local government official confirmed the report but declined to give further details. 
   
   The United States has stepped up drone strikes as part of a campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), regarded by Washington as the most active wing of the network. 
   
   Yemen, AQAP’s main stronghold, is among a handful of countries where the United States acknowledges using drones, although it does not comment on the practice. 
   
   Last month, at least 15 people were killed and five others injured when a drone mistook a wedding party travelling in the central Yemeni province of al-Bayda for an al Qaeda convoy. 
   
   Stabilizing Yemen, which is also struggling with southern separatists and northern rebels, is an international priority amid fears of upheaval in a state that flanks top oil producer Saudi Arabia and major shipping lanes.
target: – Congress' $1.1 trillion spending bill contains a secret provision torpedoing President Obama's plans to pass the drone program from the CIA to the Pentagon. In a classified annex, the bill specifically prohibits any funds being used to facilitate such a transfer, the Washington Post reports. Obama wants to shift the CIA from its paramilitary footing back to an intelligence one, and perhaps bring greater transparency to the drone program. But lawmakers don't trust the military with the keys. One source said the provision was more complicated than simply withholding money for the switch, and former officials said it could contain language forcing the military to demonstrate its targeting procedures were up to CIA standards. Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein last year said she'd "really have to be convinced" that the military could exercise as much "patience and discretion" as the CIA in avoiding civilian casualties, statements she says she stands behind. The military didn't help its case last month either by hitting a wedding party in Yemen; in an op-ed yesterday, Yemen's minister for human rights said that strike had sent a "wave of outrage" across the country. Yesterday also saw a drone strike kill a Yemeni farmer.