LONDON -- It will be a weekend of celebration across Britain. Not least among suffering retailers, who amid the country's double-dip recession will be cheering as loudly as the flag-flying crowds lining London's River Thames to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee.

But despite the estimated 823 million pounds ($1.25 billion) expected to be spent by revellers this weekend, British businesses have proved stingy when it comes to raising the funds for the piece de resistance: Sunday's advertising-free pageant will include a three-hour flotilla featuring more than 1,000 boats.

The committee responsible for the event earlier this year tried entice British companies into contributing to its 10.5 million pound ($16 million) cost. But with a ban on advertising on either the riverside or on participating boats, it proved to be a difficult sell and organizers had to draw on contributions from foreign companies and individuals to make up the shortfall.

Lord Salisbury, the chairman of Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, reportedly said that he did not wish to empty the public purse.  

Instead organizers had to approach a number of non-British companies to pay for the costs, which include 7,000 stewards as well as festivities planned in Battersea Park.

'Six-figure checks'
Official supporters include American oil company Chevron, advertising company AMV BBDO and Boris Johnson, who is London's New York-born mayor. An additional 20 publicly listed donors have contributed to the tab.

Read more stories from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Companies from America, Australia and the Far East have reportedly signed "six-figure checks" as contributions.

However, the British public will never know the full list of organizations that contributed to the funding as the Jubilee Foundation only lists the donors who wish to be named.

Among this list there are 14 U.K. individuals and companies and six foreign individuals and businesses. This list includes American banking giants Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and Japanese brokering house Nomura Group.

According to a Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant spokeswoman, there are "a considerable number of contributors who have made donations and do not wish to be named."

More Diamond Jubilee coverage from Britain's ITV News

Other events, where companies are allowed to market themselves, have proved more popular to companies.

The biggest commercial boon will be the Queen's Jubilee Picnic, to be held in the gardens of Buckingham Palace on Monday and attended by 13,000 guests. 

Supermarket giant Waitrose may be providing 10,000 free hampers for the Jubilee Picnic but its commercial gains are already pouring in.

Waitrose has predicted its strawberry sales will increase seven-fold and "sales of Elderflower cordial have been soaring by an incredible 1,000 percent."

A survey by Moneysupermarket.com also suggests Britons will spend 823 million pounds ($1.26 billion), or an average of 40 pounds ($61) per person on Jubilee-related purchases.

However, not everything is in the best possible taste. Diamond Jubilee sick bags are among the items being sold.

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• Obama embraced redefinition of 'civilian' in drone wars

Reuters, file

Tribesmen hold pieces of a missile at the site of a drone attack in Mir Ali, Pakistan, on Jan. 24, 2009 -- just days after President Barack Obama's inauguration.

Updated at 10:05 a.m. ET: LONDON -- Two U.S. reports published Tuesday provide significant insights into President Obama’s personal and controversial role in the escalating covert U.S. drone war in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

In a major extract from Daniel Klaidman’s forthcoming book Kill Or Capture, the author reveals extensive details of how secret U.S. drone strikes have evolved under Obama – and how the president knew of civilian casualties from his earliest days in office.

The New York Times has also published a key investigation exploring how the Obama Administration runs its secret 'Kill List' – the names of those chosen for execution by CIA and Pentagon drones outside the conventional battlefield.

The Times' report also reveals that President Obama "embraced" a broadening of the term "civilian", helping to limit any public controversy over "non-combatant" deaths.

As the Bureau's own data on Pakistan makes clear, the very first covert drone strikes of the Obama presidency, just three days after he took office, resulted in civilian deaths in Pakistan. As many as 19 civilians – including four children – died in two error-filled attacks.

Until now it had been thought that Obama was initially unaware of the civilian deaths. Bob Woodward has reported that the president was only told by CIA chief Michael Hayden that the strikes had missed their High Value Target but had killed "five al Qaeda militants."

Read more stories from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Now Newsweek correspondent Daniel Klaidman reveals that Obama knew about the civilian deaths within hours. He reports an anonymous participant at a subsequent meeting with the president: "You could tell from his body language that he was not a happy man." Obama is described aggressively questioning the tactics used.

Yet despite the errors, the president ultimately chose to keep in place the CIA’s controversial policy of using "signature strikes" against unknown militants. That tactic has just been extended to Yemen.

'Covert' US drone operation is mapped on Twitter

On another notorious occasion, the article reveals that U.S. officials were aware at the earliest stage that civilians – including "dozens of women and children" – had died in Obama’s first ordered strike in Yemen in December 2009. The Bureau recently named all 44 civilians killed in that attack by cruise missiles.

'I'd have to go to confession'
No U.S. officials have ever spoken publicly about the strike, although secret diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks proved that the U.S. was responsible. Now Klaidman reveals that Jeh Johnson, one of the State Department’s senior lawyers, watched the strike take place with others on a video screen:

"Johnson returned to his Georgetown home around midnight that evening, drained and exhausted. Later there were reports from human-rights groups that dozens of women and children had been killed in the attacks, reports that a military source involved in the operation termed “persuasive.” Johnson would confide to others, “If I were Catholic, I’d have to go to confession.”

Klaidman describes a world in which the CIA and Pentagon constantly push for significant attacks on the U.S.’s enemies. In March 2009, for example, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen reportedly called for the bombing of an entire training camp in southern Somalia in order to kill one militant leader.

Pakistan official: US drone strike hits mosque; 10 killed

One dissenter at the meeting is said to have described the tactic as "carpet-bombing a country." The attack did not go ahead.

Obama is generally described as attempting to rein back both the CIA and the Pentagon. But in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki – "Obama’s Threat Number One" – different rules applied.

According to Klaidman, Obama let it be known that he would consider allowing civilian deaths if it meant killing the U.S.-Yemeni cleric. "Bring it to me and let me decide in the reality of the moment rather than in the abstract," an aide recalls him saying. No civilians died that day, as it turned out.

In its own major investigation, the New York Times examines the secret US 'Kill List' – the names of those chosen for death at the hands of US drones. The report is based on interviews with more than 36 key individuals with knowledge of the scheme.

Drone spotting at secret Nevada base stirs up debate

The Times' report says:

"[Obama's] first term has seen private warnings from top officials about a 'Whac-A-Mole' approach to counterterrorism; the invention of a new category of aerial attack following complaints of careless targeting; and presidential acquiescence in a formula for counting civilian deaths that some officials think is skewed to produce low numbers."

It is often been reported that President Obama has urged officials to avoid wherever possible the deaths of civilians in covert U.S. actions in Pakistan and elsewhere. But reporters Jo Becker and Scott Shane reveal that Obama "embraced" a formula understood to have been devised by the Bush administration:

"Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."

So concerned have some officials been by this "false accounting" that they have taken their concerns direct to the White House, according to the New York Times.

Photos document alleged US drone strike victims in Pakistan

The revelation helps explain the wide variation between credible reports of civilian deaths in Pakistan by the Bureau and others, and the CIA’s claims that it had killed no "non-combatants" between May 2010 and September 2011 – and possibly later.

The investigation also reveals that more than 100 U.S. officials take part in a weekly "death list" video conference run by the Pentagon, at which it is decided who will be added to the U.S. military’s kill/ capture lists. "A parallel, more cloistered selection process at the CIA focuses largely on Pakistan, where that agency conducts strikes," the paper reports.

But according to at least one former senior administration official, Obama’s obsession with targeted killings is "dangerously seductive." Retired admiral Dennis Blair, the former US Director of National Intelligence, told the paper that the campaign was:

"The politically advantageous thing to do — low cost, no US casualties, gives the appearance of toughness. It plays well domestically, and it is unpopular only in other countries. Any damage it does to the national interest only shows up over the long term."

Clarification: An earlier version of this story said that President Obama "personally authorized the broadening of the term 'civilian'" and attributed the redefining of "civilian" to his administration. However, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism now understands that the Obama administration instead embraced a pre-existing policy introduced under President George W. Bush. The Bureau apologizes for this error.

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