The New York Times, meanwhile, has revealed the private military firm Blackwater has played a major role in the US drone attack program. The CIA has used Blackwater contractors to assemble and load missiles and bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft. The CIA drone attacks have targeted al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but the vast majority of its casualties have been civilian. The New York Times says Blackwater is not involved in selecting or firing on targets. But its work in loading the munitions has been criticized as faulty when bombs have radically missed their targets. Some of the drones were operated out of a newly disclosed US air base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The US began using the base out of concern it would be forced out of Pakistan. The news comes one day after the New York Times also revealed Blackwater was hired for the secret CIA program to assassinate terrorist suspects. On Thursday, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein said the CIA’s failure to brief Congress on the program marked “a violation of law.”