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Assassination by PowerPoint
Robert Baer writes in Time about the CIA program that's been kept secret from Congress for the past eight years. It was, as well all know by now, an "assassination squad":
Like many of these stories, there's less to it than meets the eye. The unit conducted no assassinations or grabs. A former CIA officer involved in the program told me that no targets were picked, no weapons issued and no one sent overseas to carry out anything. "It was little more than a PowerPoint presentation," he said. "Why would we tell Congress?"
That's a good question, especially since the program was an open secret. On Oct. 28, 2001, the Washington Post ran an article with the title "CIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing' Missions." And in 2006, New York Times reporter James Risen wrote a book in which he revealed the program's secret code name, Box Top. Moreover, it is well known that on Nov. 3, 2002, the CIA launched a Hellfire missile from a Predator drone over Yemen, killing an al-Qaeda member involved in the attack on the U.S.S. Cole. And who knows how many "targeted killings" there have been in Afghanistan and Iraq?
As Baer goes on to point out, assassination is a no-no: "In the CIA, that was the closest thing we had to the Ten Commandments." But what about assassination during wartime? A plot to assassinate Saddam Hussein in 1995 would have been illegal, but the same plot in March 2003 would surely have been OK. In fact, we tried pretty hard to do exactly that during the "shock and awe" bombing phase that kicked off the war.
But as usual, the "war on terror" is in a gray area all its own. Is it a real war? Is a guy with a sniper rifle different from an Air Force specialist guiding a Predator drone? Is the CIA under the same restrictions it would be under during peacetime? What are the rules?
If the news reports are right about this program, it deserves a full-scale investigation by Congress. Everybody knows we're trying to kill al-Qaeda operatives one way or another, so it's not as if we'd be revealing any dark secrets of national security. And if the whole thing really was just a "PowerPoint presentation," it might exonerate the CIA and remove the cloud currently surrounding them. What's the argument against doing this?
Nomenclature
Assassination squad is a peculiar term. Death squads seems to be the more common phrasing, at least when referring to other governments.
You guys just don't get it.
You guys just don't get it. You have to think like Dick. Cheney was President of the Senate, he knew about the program, therefore Congress was informed. End of controversy.
Irrelevant -- the entire
Irrelevant -- the entire "CIA assassination" story is a misdirection from the actual Other Intelligence Activities. It's just offensive (and illegal) enough to be "shocking", but ludicrous to believe that this is what career intelligence and justice officials were willing to resign over.
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SOG, Delta Force, Paramilitary
I don't think we have the full story or even the right story going. For one thing everything keeps sliding around, sometimes this seems to be a totally CIA project important enough that the VP had to personally intervene to keep secret, sometimes it becomes a CIA project dumped in 2004 only to be picked up by Rumsfeld deploying Delta force. In either case there seems some effort to describe both CIA SOG and Delta Force as some combination of the Keystone Kops and the Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, as if the logistics of inserting clandestine teams into foreign countries was some sort of perplexing mystification to these guys. For example the piece in American Conservative protrayed Delta Force as some sort of southern crew-cut hicks trying to pass unnoticed in Nairobi and having to be bailed out by the Ambassador much as some drunken frat boys might have to be rescued by the American Consul in Cancun.
The only story that is making any kind of sense is the original Sy Hersch version of a hit squad reporting to Cheney used to strike not al-Qaeda leadership (who by all accounts are fair game) but people perceived to be al-Qaeda supporters or financiers. And since under the PATRIOT Act and general Cheney/Bush operational theory almost anyone can be defined as objectively pro-terrorist this would take the term Arbitrary Executive to whole new scary levels.
But I just don't think the U.S. secret intelligence community spent years agonizing over whether shooting Osama bin Laden thorugh the head at close range was some violation of a 70's era Executive Order against assassination. That would be kind of finicky for a group that was perfectly willing to waterboard al-Qaeda's equivalent of a travel agent 83 times over a few month period. The angst can't be over the methods, it can only be over the range of acceptable targets and the degree of discretion given to the principal who in this case seems to be Fourth Branch.
What?!? A program to kill
What?!? A program to kill terrorists planning to kill Americans?
Doctor - some feinting couches for our liberal friends. Stat!
Of course, the WaPo covered this story back in 2001, including the fact that it was briefed to Congress. So why the liberal outrage and the lies about Congress not being informed is beyond me.
@Pepsuber: You're
@Pepsuber: You're right.
Ergo, this program is not the Other Intelligence Activities you are looking for.
ASSASINATIONS AND YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
Remember the sons of Saddam ? The baby daughter of Qaddafy ?
They were neither convicted of capital crimes or violent to US citizens....
But the US government massacred them with relish !
What are the responsibilities of the voter in this ?
Before and also after the assasinations ?
Does the citizen have a right to call himself irresponsible ?
I Doubt...
We are not getting any straight information on this -- remember, the program was secret and illegal. We don't know more than that. Anything else we are getting is coming from the liars that started this nonsense, and thus have everything to gain from *lying to us.*
I say we don't assume we know anything about this secret program until we have a congressional investigation that gets some independent verification.
We do *NOT* "all know by now" that it was an assassination squad. It insults our intelligence to say so, and it plays into the hands of those that want this to go away ("All we were trying to do was kill bin Laden, but we had to avoid the evil bureaucracy of Congress to have any chance of doing it. Honest. Trust us. Oh, and it never went anywhere. And other than lying repeatedly to Congress, we didn't do anything wrong.")
Incompetence thy name is Dick Cheney!
I agree we need much more information. None of this adds up and I’d certainly like to see their proposed target list. Don’t forget, the Bush administration has a long history of conflating opposition to the Iraq invasion with advocacy of terrorism. Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if most of the proposed targets had little or nothing to do with al-Qaeda but were instead Bush’s political opponents.
But let’s take this thing at face value for a moment: This was supposedly a plan to kill al-Qaida leadership and/or operational assets a la the Israeli response to Munich. It was begun almost immediately after 9/11. Looking at the Munich example, it’s clear that the logistical details (cover identities, travel/housing/transport arrangements, escapes, surveillance of targets,etc) are roughly the same as for the types of spying operations which I suppose were routinely carried out all the time by the CIA during Cold War and which are now hopefully being carried out in places like Yemen, Somalia and Syria. So I find the claim that the plan foundered over logical difficulties extremely troubling.
The operation was important enough to have been personally supervised by Dick Cheney himself. There was a clear operational model (Munich). All of the countries in which the CIA teams would be “working” are presumably high priority intelligence targets which means that the infrastructure to support such an operation in the target country should already be in place.
Yet despite all of this the CIA couldn’t manage to do in nearly eight years something which the Israelis were able to accomplish in a matter of months? Incompetence thy name is Dick Cheney!
Mitch Guthman
only in the planning stages . . .
That's what Brian Cox said about Treadstone in the Bourne Identity.
We assassinated Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi in 2002. Anyway, I figure it's mostly misdirection and the real program was about giving Kim Jong Il a stroke, Castro intestinal distress, and making Chavez fat.
Doesn't pass the smell test
So you buy that crap story? What then would have been the need to keep it secret from the gang of eight? Hell, in the years after 9-11 they could have told all of Congress and nobody would have objected to go after al-Qaeda leaders.
And keeping it secret to not jeopardize particular missions? You actually think the al-Qeada leadership was not assuming that the Americans were after each and every one of them? And you seriously believe that to inform the gang of eight would have meant to give them things like operational details as to which targets the program was going after at any given time?
Sorry, this is a cover story that doesn't pass the smell test.
Idiocy, thy name is Mitch.
Idiocy, thy name is Mitch.
That's the best you've got?
MacGruber,
I mean, really? I'm an idiot? That's an interesting perspective because if we assume that all these leaks are accurate, this was a high-priority program (perhaps the highest) designed to strike directly at those responsible for 9/11 and ideally to also preempt future attacks by hitting the terrorists before they could hit us again. I can't think of anything that the executive branch could have been doing in the aftermath of 9/11 more directly and concretely related to protecting this country. It is, in fact, what most of the world (myself included) assumed that the CIA was doing---urgently, unerringly and with cold calculated precision.
As it turns out, however, most of the world was apparently wrong. Today is July 16, 2009. Cheney's personally overseen outfit has, to date, killed exactly zero terrorists and was still only "preparing to become operational". The comparison to the Israeli operation is hardly flattering, to put it charitably.
So, I'm curious how you were able to arrive at the conclusion that the man who personally oversaw a high priority project which is still supposedly not operational after nearly eight years is competent but I'm an idiot.
Mitch Guthman
" ... and remove the cloud
" ... and remove the cloud currently surrounding them"
What cloud? It only exists in the minds of dingbat leftists who are trying to get discredited current house speaker Pelosi off the hook for all the lies she told.
And dingbat leftists aren't going to become unclouded by mere facts and logic anyway.
I Solved This Question A While Ago
tagged as:- result
No. The war on terror is not a real war, as it was authorized under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 instead of Art.1, Sec.8 of the Constitution. (Logic found here. This is also why anyone who was tried for being AWOL over the past 8 years or so was not also charged with desertion in time of war. (And also why I would have to clean coffee off my monitor whenever Bush II called himself a "war president"!)
Therefore, the CIA is still considered "weapons-tight" when it comes to extralegal activities. Whether they actually are, however, should and will be the subject of investigations.
And to Marco @ 9:15a: In case you don't remember, Uday and Qusay Hussein died in a stand-up firefight with U.S. troops. (Admittedly one which was so foolishly led that it took 200 soldiers 4 hours, plus air support, to assault a single building with four occupants...) And al-Gaddafi's adopted daughter was not the target of the military bombing of Tripoli. al-Gaddafi's real daughter, however, is alive and well and was involved in the defense of the man who threw his shoes at Bush II.
If another liberal can fact check you in a single paragraph, you shouldn't be allowed near a venue where conservatives can get ahold of you.
even in time of war, it is a
even in time of war, it is a violation of the laws of war to target a particular named indvidual. it is allowed to (say) look for and target anyone in a general's uniform or any staff car, but not a particular person. the killing of yamamoto was technically illegal.
it depends
I think we have to accept the possibility of targeted killing when there's an imminent threat and no other way to disable the terrorist. Think of a guy running towards a crowd with a bomb in his hands screaming "allahu akbar!".
However, this CIA program we're talking about here seems to me more like a kind of justice or punishment after the facts, but without due process. Even if a CIA operative accidentally met Osama while he was buying shampoo on a market in Pakistan, I wouldn't be happy seeing him shot. Even Osama deserves due process. Arrest him and bring him to justice. I would also do the US some good.
Like I argue here.
"Think of a guy running
"Think of a guy running towards a crowd with a bomb in his hands screaming "allahu akbar!"."
How do you know it's a bomb? It could be a backpack full of Islamic books. It could be a camelbak vest for jogging, not a suicide belt. It could be a simple clock and he could be reminding people that evening prayers are coming.
And so what if he's sceaming "allahu akbar" - that is profiling and racist and discriminatory. He is exercising his right to free speech and freedom to practice his religion.
/typical liberal