Since March 2013, news has been going around that the Obama administration was planning to shift its lethal targeted killing drone programme from the CIA to a more transparent Department of Defence (DoD). But as it turns out now, the shift of operational control has been stalled, at least for the time-being. Reports say it is not expected to happen any time soon. The reasons: operational efficiency and flexibility to carry out covert deployment.

Supporters of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa Islamic organization burn the U.S. flag as they shout slogans during a protest, against U.S. drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal region, in Karachi November 1, 2013. (REUTERS/Athar Hussain)

In Mar 2013, in an exclusive, The Daily Beast's Daniel Klaidman reported that the Obama administration was poised to shift the CIA's drone program to the Pentagon. The report said, the move was aimed at potentially toughening the "criteria for drone strike, strengthen the program's accountability, and increase transparency." With both the CIA and DoD having their own individual drone programmes, the move was seen as an effort to unify command and control. Although the CIA was expected to retain some role, the operational control over targeting it was suggested would rest with the DoD.

Along with the March 2013 report, a series of White House leaks in May and President Obama's remarks at the National Defence University calling for "transparency and debate on this issue" led observers to believe that CIA was getting out of the drone business altogether.

The Daily Beast's March report quoted officials saying the shift in operational control of the drone program was to be a phased-in transition from CIA to the military. CIA operators were likely to work with the military to execute the targetted killings of suspected terrorists.

Although, officials who spoke to The Daily Beast had warned that shifting the program from the CIA to DoD would mean a loss of a decade of expertise that the Agency had gained in running the targeted killing program; critics had expressed hope that the DoD would bring the much need transparency in their the targeted killing operation.

Now an exclusive report by Foreign Policy says that the shift may not happen any time soon.

"The physics of making this happen quickly are remarkably difficult," the FP quoted one U.S. official as saying. "The goal remains the same, but the reality has set in."

"This is the policy, and we're moving toward that policy, but it will take some time," another U.S. official quoted in the FP report emphasized

"The notion that there has been some sort of policy reversal is just not accurate. I think from the moment the policy was announced it was clear it was not something that would occur overnight or immediately."

The reasons for the delay in transfer are obvious - the need is for the programme to be efficient, cost effective and clandestine. "The agency can do it much more efficiently and at lower cost than the military can," one former intelligence official quoted by FP said.

The military, with its larger support staff to operate the aircraft will take longer to deploy drones, feel another official quoted in the FP report. Retaining the drone programme under the CIA also offers it the legal cover to carry out targeted strikes even outside war zones.

"By law, the military is not supposed to conduct hostile actions outside a declared war zone, although special forces do so on occasion acting at the CIA's behest," the FP report says.