CIA Had Program to Assassinate Al Qaeda Leaders

by Bartleby the Scrivener | Seymour Hersh spoke back in March of an "executive assassination ring" that reported directly to Cheney, though he seemed to think that the program was actually being implemented.  I assume he was talking about the same program that Director Leon Panetta just cancelled and which the CIA says it never got round to implementing(NYT) -- though "some officials" told WaPo that "some elements" were operational, so maybe everybody's right. 

The New York Times deadpans:

Officials at the spy agency over the years ran into myriad logistical, legal and diplomatic obstacles. How could the role of the United States be masked? Should allies be informed and might they block the access of the C.I.A. teams to their targets? What if American officers or their foreign surrogates were caught in the midst of an operation? Would such activities violate international law or American restrictions on assassinations overseas?  (NYT)

Following 9-11, see,  Bush apparently signed a secret order "authorizing the C.I.A. to capture or kill operatives of Al Qaeda around the world. To be able to kill Osama bin Laden or his top deputies wherever they might be — even in cities or countries far from a war zone — struck top agency officials as an urgent goal, according to people involved in the discussions."  (NYT)  As one former agent said, that sort of thing works great in the movies. (NYT)

In his turn, Steve Benen deadpans:

For the same reason the U.S. government would be displeased with foreign paramilitary teams carrying out assassinations on American soil, the prospects of sending small, surgical U.S. assassination squads around the world, including into allied countries, proved problematic.

WaPo puts the case a little differently.

The CIA ran a secret program for nearly eight years that aspired to kill top al-Qaeda leaders with specially trained assassins, but the agency declined to tell Congress because the initiative never came close to bringing Osama bin Laden and his deputies into U.S. cross hairs, U.S. intelligence and congressional officials said yesterday.

At any rate, Bush -- and Obama -- found an alternative in the missile strikes with armed Predator drones -- which are working really well, if you don't mind a huge number of civilian deaths. (NYT)  The assassination ring, say "current and former officials" would have been more "surgical." (NYT)

“The Predator strikes have been successful, and I was pleased to see the Obama administration continue them,” said Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “This was another effort that was trying to accomplish the same objective.”(NYT)

About Panetta's cancellation of the program, Bond also said:

Why would you cancel it?...If the CIA weren't trying to do something like this, we'd be asking 'Why not?' " (WaPo)

Democrats are, of course, extremely annoyed that Congress wasn't sufficiently briefed. The officials who said that some elements of the program were operational said they should have been disclosed because -- in the words of one intelligence official -- they "involved "significant resources and high risk." (WaPo)  (Other officials say the program never got beyond the feasibility studies stage.)  One counterterrorism official says that everything the CIA did was within "legal guidelines." (WaPo)  Yes, we've heard that one before.

But what about Cheney's role in all this?  Still unclear. 

One official recalled that the vice president ordered only a temporary delay in notifying Congress, until the planning for an al-Qaeda hit crossed certain thresholds -- for example, a planned movement of operatives across international boundaries. "What is being labeled now as covert action never reached that point," said the official, who is familiar with intelligence committee briefings on the matter. (WaPo)

HuffPost has more on the allegations about Cheney's role here.

More blogger reaction at Memeorandum.

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