Sen. John McCain says he still supports the use of military drones, but wants a review of why faulty intelligence allowed two hostages to be killed in a drone strike in January.
"The whole process has to be revisited and reviewed. But to do away with the drone program, of course would deprive us of an enormously important tool that we use to take out the leaders of these terrorist organizations," the Arizona Republican, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Thursday on
CNN's "Newsroom."
President Barack Obama on Thursday apologized to the families and said he took "full responsibility" for the hit on an al-Qaida compound that killed American hostage Warren Weinstein and Italian hostage Giovanni Lo Porto. The compound was in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
That strike killed several al-Qaida leaders, including American Ahmed Farouq, the White House said. A separate strike also killed American al-Qaida leader Adam Gadahn.
Though McCain thinks a review should be conducted to see what happened to try to find ways to prevent it from happening again, he admitted that some might come to the conclusion that the dangers are a necessary risk.
"But it seems to me that since we have so much capability we're going to find out that it could have been avoided," he said.
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