Big Hush-Hush Secret: U.S. Plotted To Kill AQ Leaders
The Wall Street Journal reports the big secret plan the CIA on Dick Cheney’s orders didn’t tell Congress about was a program to target al-Qaeda leaders for assassination. Turns out Congress was kind of told about it. Apparently wanting to kill al-Qaeda leaders is wrong:
WASHINGTON — A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said CIA Director Panetta told lawmakers Vice President Cheney ordered information be withheld from Congress.
The precise nature of the highly classified effort isn’t clear, and the CIA won’t comment on its substance.
According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn’t become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.
In 2001, the CIA also examined the subject of targeted assassinations of al Qaeda leaders, according to three former intelligence officials. It appears that those discussions tapered off within six months. It isn’t clear whether they were an early part of the CIA initiative that Mr. Panetta stopped.
The revelations about the CIA and its post-9/11 activities have emerged amid a renewed fight between the agency and congressional Democrats. Last week, seven Democratic lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee released a letter that talked about the CIA effort, which they said Mr. Panetta acknowledged hadn’t been properly vetted with Congress. CIA officials had brought the matter to Mr. Panetta’s attention and had recommended he inform Congress.
Neither Mr. Panetta nor the lawmakers provided details. Mr. Panetta quashed the CIA effort after learning about it June 23.
So killing al-Qaeda leaders is not only a big controversial hush-hush secret, it’s also wrong.
OK, I’m confused. I thought that was what they were supposed to be doing. I’m pretty sure that’s what Bill Clinton had in mind when he was lobbing cruise missiles onto assorted patches of desert and rocky crags in Afghanistan. I know that is pretty much was George Bush was talking about with his “dead or alive” speech. In fact, when the U.S. military blew up Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the CIA started lobbing Hellfires into Yemen and Waziristan, I thought that was the basic idea. Kill al-Qaeda leaders. It’s not like they’re the legitimate vile dictators of a legitimate vile enemy state like, I dunno, Nazi Germany, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic Iran or Baathist Iraq … where you’ll recall the United States specifically did try to drop missiles on Saddam’s head. Something’s not right here. Better read on …
The official noted that Congress had long been briefed on the finding, and that the CIA effort wasn’t so much a program as “many ideas suggested over the course of years.” It hadn’t come close to fruition, he added.
Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said little had been spent on the efforts — closer to $1 million than $50 million. “The idea for this kind of program was tossed around in fits and starts,” he said.
What? Eight years in and we can’t scrape up more than a million-odd bucks or more than some “fits and starts” towards killing al-Qaeda?
Senior CIA leaders were briefed two or three times on the most recent iteration of the initiative, the last time in the spring of 2008. At that time, CIA brass said that the effort should be narrowed and that Congress should be briefed if the preparations reached a critical stage, a former senior intelligence official said.
Amid the high alert following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a small CIA unit examined the potential for targeted assassinations of al Qaeda operatives, according to the three former officials. The Ford administration had banned assassinations in the response to investigations into intelligence abuses in the 1970s. Some officials who advocated the approach were seeking to build teams of CIA and military Special Forces commandos to emulate what the Israelis did after the Munich Olympics terrorist attacks, said another former intelligence official.
“It was straight out of the movies,” one of the former intelligence officials said. “It was like: Let’s kill them all.”
Yeah, like Bush said, “Dead or alive!” God, I miss the Bush administration. Though maybe the lefties are right. Maybe they didn’t put enough resources into going after bin Laden after all. Sounds like this is just another aspect of the Bush GWOT that Obama is embracing … Ix-nay on illing-kay in-Laden-bay.
Maybe they should have hearings. My big question is, why was this particular part of the whole al-Qaeda killing thing was never taken operational, and why would Panetta end such a great program? Was it not an effective al-Qaeda-killing program? Did they come up with some other better way to kill al-Qaeda? And if not, then why not? Isn’t that what they are supposed to be doing? That would be must-see CSPAN.
I hope they do put Dick Cheney on trial for this one, just like all the lefties want. Once DOJ figures out who the government is representing in this one, testimony could be a hoot:
Govt: So, Mr. Cheney. Why did you want to kill top al-Qaeda leaders, and why did you feel this was not something you could safely report to Congress?
XVP: Well, let’s see, where to start …
And
Govt: So, Mr. Panetta. Why did you decide to stop killing al-Qaeda leaders, and why did you feel it was important for the world to know that you would not be doing this?
CIA Chief: Well, let’s see, where to start …
Now, do you suppose this non-operational program is what Seymour Hersh was talking about? He had a Cheney-led team actually going into various countries and killing people. Which sounds like a great idea, if they actually got off the stick and did it.
HotAir: Gasp!
Surber: More CIA CYA. What would Mossad do? Don’t all raise your hands at once.
Still waiting on the prosecution enthusiasts at Balloon-Juice to rub the sleep out of their eyes.
Meanwhile, the lefties at Think Progress helpfully quote Our Dark Lord’s daughter Liz Cheney saying that an investigation of her father would be “unAmerican” and “just prove to the American people one more time why they can’t trust the Democrats with our national security.” Which the American people apparently need, given the 2008 election results. Hearings now!
Topics: GWOT, al qaeda, moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:55 am on Monday, July 13, 2009
15 Responses to “Big Hush-Hush Secret: U.S. Plotted To Kill AQ Leaders”
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July 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am
This doesn’t really make sense, considering that we have been targeting AQ leaders for assassination in Iraq & Pakistan for quite some time now (unless you consider shooting a missile at a house where an AQ leader is suspected to be something other than assassination.)
July 13th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I am in favor of Congress spending the rest of the time until November 2010 in hearings on these vital issues. It will bore the public witless and we won’t be inflicted with cap & tax or health insurance “reform”. It is a win win solution.
July 13th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Agreed. If they’re busy armchair quarterbacking, they won’t be picking my pocket.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
[...] there are those who think it’s OK for us to kill the enemy during [...]
July 13th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I think so too: the more Congress indulges in finger-pointing, feuding, and self-righteous babbling, the less they’ll be able to do for their “fix-America” agenda. Frankly, we’ve been “fixed” way too much. And besides, going after Bush and the CIA over al-Qaeda is bound to raise a lot of hackles in flyover America.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:45 am
[...] Steve Green jokes, “Apparently, there are those who think it’s OK for us to kill the enemy during wartime. What’s happened to [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 1:42 am
[...] also Jules Crittenden and Ed Morrisey’s take on this “scandal.” It makes you wonder if the Democrats [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 1:50 am
[...] The plan was to kill al-Qaeda leaders. [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Well whaddya know. Sy Hersh was right about something. For once. Sort of. In a jacked-up, bass-ackwards kinda way.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Well, occasionally Crazy Sy actually IS right. In this case, though, he missed the scandal: CIA’s top-secret do-nothing AQ hit squad was so embarassingly ineffective, the CIA didn’t even want to tell Congress about it.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
A smokescreen to distract from the rising unemployment numbers, $1 trillion and growing deficit, a racist and sexist supreme court appointee, a SECOND stimulus package.
The left still has people hypnotized by swinging the “Bush Administration was terrible–we are the change you need–everything will be fine–we’ll reduce the deficit by increasing it in 7 years” pendulum. Without Bush/Cheney as the villains, the distraction, people would realize that this administration’s policies are wrecking our economy. Its like an idealistic college student has been given a 5 trillion dollar credit line and he’s fulfilling all of his hopes and dreams with it–but we’ll all foot the bill in the end and we’ll still be left with an economy in the dumps, with all of our international political power gone.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I wonder what Congress might have done if only Dick Cheney had told them we didn’t have a secret assassination squad.
Or if you prefer, that we had thought about it but hadn’t done it.
I wonder too if Congress knows everything about what the Executive branch is currently not doing. Has anyone even thought to ask?
And yes, Seymour Hersh (who said “Dick Cheney doesn’t have an assassination squad”) was absolutely right. Every one who said he did owes Seymour Hersh an apology.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:23 am
I thought the U.S. had special forces to do this sort of thing competently, and didn’t need a bunch of armed civilians trying to create their own version.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Does this mean we don’t have a program to kill or capture Al Queda leaders?????? What the hell are they doing?
That is what needs to be investigated.
July 24th, 2009 at 11:03 am
[...] also Jules Crittenden and Ed Morrisey’s take on this ’scandal.’ It makes you wonder if the Democrats [...]