An NBC News review of classified intelligence reports shows that the Central Intelligence Agency didn't always know who it was killing in its targeted drone strikes in Pakistan for more than a year. According to the exclusive NBC News study, about one out of every four killed by drones there between Sept. 3, 2010, and Oct. 30, 2011 was classified as an "other militant" — a designation used when the CIA couldn't determine the target's affiliation. That poses the question of how the CIA had decided such targets were threats to the U.S. in the first place — and one former White House official told NBC News that the U.S. sometimes picked its targets for execution based on "circumstantial evidence" involving their behavior and associates. Three former officials in President Barack Obama's administration also told NBC News that some in the White House worry the CIA has exaggerated its success and downplayed its mistakes in the numbers it provides on drone strikes. Click through to read the full revelations in NBC News' review of the classified data.
