Every strike I called in was in response to attacks. We watched them attack us or friendlies, maybe try to ditch the weapons, or we saw them planting an IED or something late at night. So for those, you have eyes on them through the sensors on the aircraft. The intel is the just you observing them, surveying the area for possible collateral and building a pattern of life to make sure civi cars aren't driving by a lot. IF the strike is urgent, like time sensitive, it can be 10 min from aircraft arriving over head to dropping. If friendlies aren't currently under attack, you may wait a while, especially if your target is in a technical vehicle. Because then you can follow them and find more targets.

I was military. CIA has their own drone program, but they don't have operators on the ground on patrol. It tends to be pre-planned targets for them that I imagine they build from loads more intel.

ROEs are strict for military, though. Here's an example: See a dude firing a PKM at a checkpoint. He runs and you watch him through aircraft sensors. You have a tablet that feeds into your kit and streams what the sensor sees. You watch the dude run into a building then come out with no PKM. Sorry, you can't attack anymore. If you lost tally (eyes on the enemy) for a period of time after already confirming the are Taliban, Haqqani, etc., you're not tally target anymore because you cannot positively ID them without the PKM.