FORMER US DRONE OPERATOR HAUNTED BY 1,600 DEATHS

     Tehran, 30 Rajab 1434/9 June 2013 (MINA) – A former US Air Force drone operator said that he is haunted by participating in operations that killed more than 1,600 people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

     In an interview with NBC News, Brandon Bryant, now 27, recalled witnessing the deaths he contributed to from afar, according to Fars News Agency reports quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), Sunday.

     Bryant who guided assassination drones over Iraq and Afghanistan for five years, said he “lost respect for life” as a result of taking part in operations that took an estimated 1,626 lives.

      A self-described “naive kid”, Bryant told NBC News that he joined the Air Force when he was 19. His recruiter told him he would be like a character in James Bond movies, feeding information to people on missions, he added.

     Bryant recalled one of his first tasks as a drone operator in an Air Force base in Nevada operating the camera when their team launched two missiles from a drone thousands of miles away in Afghanistan.

     The missiles hit three men walking down a road, Bryant recalled, as he and the rest of the team were watching the victims on their computer screen.

       “The guy that was running forward, he’s missing his right leg,” he described, “and I watch this guy bleed out and, I mean, the blood is hot.”

       Bryant said the man’s thermal image grew dim until he became the same color as the ground, at which point they knew he was dead.

       Earlier, the National Public Radio (NPR) based in the United States (U.S.) reported that Bryant regretted killing children and civilians in Afghanistan.

       “I realized develop a desire to kill,” he told NPR.

      According to the NPR report, he left the controversial U.S. program that targeted killings, more than two years ago. The young man was recruited by the military after graduating from high school. Now he had become homeless.

       Bryant said he is now suffering from various disorders like anger and sleeplessness and has been diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

      US drone strikes have killed more than 4,700 people overseas since 2004, according to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. Local and international investigations suggest that most of those killed in drone attacks are civilians. (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).