LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "In full accordance with the law ... the U.S. government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft," Brennan said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

"Yes, in full accordance with the law - and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives - the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones,"

Brennan added that U.S. President Barack Obama had asked the administration to be more open about the drone program and defended the attacks as legal and defended the use of drone strikes.

"We discuss. We debate. We disagree," he said. "We consider the advantages and disadvantages of taking action. We also carefully consider the costs of inaction and whether a decision not to carry out a strike could allow a terrorist attack to proceed and potentially kill scores of innocents."

Members of the anti-war group, Code Pink, disrupted the meeting with their criticism of drone strikes. One female protester was removed from the room by a police officer.

Longstanding critic, the American Civil Liberties Union, welcomed the acknowledgement of the program, but said Brennan did not provide sufficient legal justification.

"Mr. Brennan supplies legal conclusions, not legal analysis," Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement.

In his justification of the devices, Brennan says that some of the documents, captured by the U.S. Navy Seal from Bin Laden's compound, showed the late al-Qaeda leader urged subordinates to flee for places "away from aircraft photography and bombardment." The report is due to be published online this by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point this week.

A more recent, suspected U.S. drone strike left four people dead in Pakistan. The issue has proved a major hurdle in relations with Islamabad. "We continue to believe that the administration should release the Justice Department memos underlying the program - particularly the memo that authorizes the extra judicial killing of American terrorism suspects."

Islamabad has demanded a halt to the U.S. drone program before reopening NATO supply routes through its territory after an attack that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers last year.

Obama was asked about the drone program during a virtual town hall meeting earlier this year and stressed that the U.S. was "judicious" in its use of the technology.

Attorney General Eric Holder has offered a legal defense of the killing, last year in Yemen, of al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen.

© 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.